| |
| SEE! There he stands; not brave, but with an air | |
| Of sullen stupor. Mark him well! Is he | |
| Not more like brute than man? Look in his eye! | |
| No light is there; none, save the glint that shines | |
| In the now glaring, and now shifting orbs | 5 |
| Of some wild animal caught in the hunter’s trap. | |
| |
| How came this beast in human shape and form? | |
| Speak, man!—We call you man because you wear | |
| His shape-How are you thus? Are you not from | |
| That docile, child-like, tender-hearted race | 10 |
| Which we have known three centuries? Not from | |
| That more than faithful race which through three wars | |
| Fed our dear wives and nursed our helpless babes | |
| Without a single breach of trust? Speak out! | |
| |
| I am, and am not. | 15 |
| |
| Then who, why are you? | |
| |
| I am a thing not new, I am as old | |
| As human nature. I am that which lurks, | |
| Ready to spring whenever a bar is loosed; | |
| The ancient trait which fights incessantly | 20 |
| Against restraint, balks at the upward climb; | |
| The weight forever seeking to obey | |
| The law of downward pull;—and I am more: | |
| The bitter fruit am I of planted seed; | |
| The resultant, the inevitable end | 25 |
| Of evil forces and the powers of wrong. | |
| |
| Lessons in degradation, taught and learned, | |
| The memories of cruel sights and deeds, | |
| The pent-up bitterness, the unspent hate | |
| Filtered through fifteen generations have | 30 |
| Sprung up and found in me sporadic life. | |
| In me the muttered curse of dying men, | |
| On me the stain of conquered women, and | |
| Consuming me the fearful fires of lust, | |
| Lit long ago, by other hands than mine. | 35 |
| In me the down-crushed spirit, the hurled-back prayers | |
| Of wretches now long dead,—their dire bequests,— | |
| In me the echo of the stifled cry | |
| Of children for their bartered mothers’ breasts. | |
| |
| I claim no race, no race claims me; I am | 40 |
| No more than human dregs; degenerate; | |
| The monstrous offspring of the monster, Sin; | |
| I am-just what I am…. The race that fed | |
| Your wives and nursed your babes would do the same | |
| To-day, but I— | 45 |
| Enough, the brute must die! | |
| Quick! Chain him to that oak! It will resist | |
| The fire much longer than this slender pine. | |
| Now bring the fuel! Pile it ’round him! Wait! | |
| Pile not so fast or high! or we shall lose | 50 |
| The agony and terror in his face. | |
| And now the torch! Good fuel that! the flames | |
| Already leap head-high. Ha! hear that shriek! | |
| And there’s another! Wilder than the first. | |
| Fetch water! Water! Pour a little on | 55 |
| The fire, lest it should burn too fast. Hold so! | |
| Now let it slowly blaze again. See there! | |
| He squirms! He groans! His eyes bulge wildly out, | |
| Searching around in vain appeal for help! | |
| Another shriek, the last! Watch how the flesh | 60 |
| Grows crisp and hangs till, turned to ash, it sifts | |
| Down through the coils of chain that hold erect | |
| The ghastly frame against the bark-scorched tree. | |
| |
| Stop! to each man no more than one man’s share. | |
| You take that bone, and you this tooth; the chain— | 65 |
| Let us divide its links; this skull, of course, | |
| In fair division, to the leader comes. | |
| |
| And now his fiendish crime has been avenged; | |
| Let us back to our wives and children.—Say, | |
| What did he mean by those last muttered words, | 70 |
| “Brothers in spirit, brothers in deed are we”? | |
| |
