'Tis but a case of mania-subinduced

By epilepsy, at the turning-point

Of trance prolonged unduly some three days,
When by the exhibition of some drug
Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art

Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know,
The evil thing out-breaking all at once

Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,
But, flinging, so to speak, life's gates too wide,
Making a clear house of it too suddenly,
The first conceit that entered pleased to write
Whatever it was minded on the wall

So plainly at that vantage, as it were,

(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent Attaineth to erase the fancy-scrawls

Which the returned and new-established soul
Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart

That henceforth she will read or these or none.
And first- the man's own firm conviction rests

That he was dead (in fact they buried him)
That he was dead and then restored to life

By a Nazarene physician of his tribe :

- 'Sayeth, the same bade "Rise," and he did rise.

"Such cases are diurnal," thou wilt cry.

Not so this figment! — not, that such a fume,
Instead of giving way to time and health,
Should eat itself into the life of life,

As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones and all!
For see, how he takes up the after-life.
The man it is one Lazarus a Jew,

Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,
The body's habit wholly laudable,

As much, indeed, beyond the common health

As he were made and put aside to show.
Think, could we penetrate by any drug

And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,
And bring it clear and fair, by three days sleep!
Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?
This grown man eyes the world now like a child.
Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,
Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,
To bear my inquisition. While they spoke,

Now sharply, now with sorrow, - told the case,-
He listened not except I spoke to him,

But folded his two hands and let them talk,

Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.
And that's a sample how his years must go.

Look if a beggar, in fixed middle-life,
Should find a treasure, can he use the same

With straightened habits and with tastes starved small,
And take at once to his impoverished brain
The sudden element that changes things,

-That sets the undreamed-of rapture at his hand,
And puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust?
Is he not such an one as moves to mirth-
Warily parsimonious, when 's no need,
Wasteful as drunkenness at undue times?
All prudent counsel as to what befits.
The golden mean, is lost on such an one.

The man's fantastic will is the man's law.

So here

we 'll call the treasure knowledge, say

Increased beyond the fleshly faculty

Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,

Earth forced on a soul's use while seeing Heaven.

The man is witless of the size, the sum,

The value in proportion of all things,
Or whether it be little or be much.
Discourse to him of prodigious armaments
Assembled to besiege his city now,

And of the passing of a mule with gourds -
'Tis one! Then take it on the other side,
Speak of some trifling fact — he will gaze rapt
With stupor at its very littleness

(Far as I see) as if in that indeed.

He caught prodigious import, whole results;
And so will turn to us the bystanders
In ever the same stupor (note this point)
That we too see not with his opened eyes!
Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play,
Preposterously, at cross purposes.

Should his child sicken unto death, — why, look

For scarce abatement of his cheerfulness,

Or pretermission of his daily craft ——

While a word, gesture, glance, from that same child

At play or in the school or laid asleep,

Will start him to an agony of fear,

Exasperation, just as like! demand

The reason why

"'tis but a word,” object –

gesture he regards thee as our lord

Who lived there in the pyramid alone,

Looked at us, dost thou mind, when being young
We both would unadvisedly recite

Some charm's beginning, from that book of his,
Able to bid the sun throb wide and burst
All into stars, as suns grown old are wont.
Thou and the child have each a veil alike

Thrown o'er your heads from under which ye both
Stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match
Over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know!
He holds on firmly to some thread of life ·
(It is the life to lead perforcedly)
Which runs across some vast distracting orb
Of glory on either side that meagre thread,
Which, conscious of, he must not enter yet—
The spiritual life around the earthly life!
The law of that is known to him as this
His heart and brain move there, his feet stay here.
So is the man perplext with impulses

Sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on,

Proclaiming what is Right and Wrong across —

And not along this black thread through the blaze

"It should be" balked by "here it cannot be."
And oft the man's soul springs into his face
As if he saw again and heard again

His sage that bade him "Rise" and he did rise.

Something a word, a tick of the blood within

-

Admonishes.

then back Le sinks at once

To ashes, that was very fire before,
In sedulous recurrence to his trade
Whereby he earneth him the daily bread
And studiously the humbler for that pride,
Professedly the faultier that he knows
God's secret, while he holds the thread of life.
Indeed the especial marking of the man
Is prone submission to the Heavenly will —
Seeing it, what it is, and why it is.

'Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last

For that same death which will restore his being To equilibrium, body loosening soul

Divorced even now by premature full growth:
He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live

So long as God please, and just how God please.
He even seeketh not to please God more
(Which meaneth, otherwise) than as God please.
Hence I perceive not he affects to preach
The doctrine of his sect whate'er it be
Make proselytes as madmen thirst to do.
How can he give his neighbour the real ground,
His own conviction? ardent as he is —

Call his great truth a lie, why still the old
"Be it as God please" reassureth him.
I probed the sore as thy disciple should —
"How, beast," said I, "this stolid carelessness
Sufficeth thee, when Rome is on her march
To stamp out like a little spark thy town,
Thy tribe, thy crazy tale and thee at once?"
He merely looked with his large eyes on me.