Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, EPIDEMIC, by JOHN FREEMAN


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

EPIDEMIC, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Another death! Some great one has died
Last Line: He does not tell.
Subject(s): Death; Dead, The


I

ANOTHER death! Some great one has died,
Else that deep bell would not be rolling wide
His melancholy thunder.
About and under
Traffic upswells its wrangling snarling tide,
And on that tide,
Like a black plague-ship shuddering on her way,
Again the heavy, slow bell heaves and blackens day:
Some great one has died.

II

Hang now at half-mast height that omen'd rag!
The coarse indifferent flag
Flutters the same as it were for Glory hung.
Droop, flag! Or are you flung
For Death triumphant? Not to signal grief,
But Death's satanic joy?
Then let the bell quicken his note and shake
Deep-throated laughter, and lesser bells awake
For Murder's sake,
And joyous Death his lust of slaughter slake.

III

Shut door and window, let us not hear the bell,
See not the flag shake out on the brisk air.

Muffled and slow, the bell still rocks, repeating:
"Death is the crookback Pedlar crawling through
Time's villages, and thieving as he goes."

Another loose note knocks upon the air:
"Death is the miracle destroying life,
That without miracle could not be destroyed."

Anon: "A bankrupt, Death, that as he flies
From Justice, filches the dearest thing he spies."

A last note clinging mothlike to the pane:
"Death is the miracle destroying love,
That Phoenix, whom the ashes smoulder above."

IV

Now the bell hushes: only the traffic drones—
Wheels, bells, and whining horns and sullen groans
Of engines giant-burdened rocking over stones.
Another Death! Why, one died yesterday:
Is Death not satisfied unless he slay
Yesterday and again to-day?
—Sad conjuror, that's every eve rehearsing
To-morrow's death, lest there be lack of cursing
And tears, and springs of sorrow should run dry,
Weed-choked, thorn-bound, hidden from tongue and eye;
Sad conjuror, who is it bids you still
Show everlastingly your precarious skill?
It cannot be to please himself Death plays
Monotonously one trick, without amaze,
Without delight, of any other's gaze.
Yet why should Death exult in agony?
Sadistic Death, crazed with philosophies,
Sick with visions, tortured by his own eyes!
Purge thyself, Death, this cruelty abhor,
It is not needed now to open Hell's soft door.
Hell is not death, nor dying; Hell is knowing
Things now past change, but never now past rueing.
Maybe 'twas pleasure in the world's crude prime
To invent and vary crime;
But savagery is outworn now; even Time
Bends, and gross appetite is become discreet;
Civilisation moves with delicate feet;
Pity is sharpened, once so weak and chill:—
Must Death be savage still?

V

Question no more. A lord of feudal time
Pored not over the code of law and crime.
Aloof, magnificent, his whim
Was like the armour that invested him,
Crusted with senseless glitter of cunning gold.
Nothing his eyes feared, but growing old.
Vassals asked not his purpose; they but sought
Oblivion when he passed, or safety bought
With low obeisance, or at his bidding sped
To slay another lest themselves be dead.

VI

Great Death? Death a great lord? Thy greatness show:
Thy power admitted, thy power forgo.
We will make knees to Death if Death will stay
His wantonness. Even careless youth will pray,
And age grown fearful, anguished, palsied, cry
Hosannah! in thy glory.
No, no, not a great lord art thou. A poor
Slave, emasculate Nubian, listening for
The dreadful voice that thunders in his blood
From ancient aeons, bidding him Slay, Slay!—
Heard, not understood.
Poor timid Death, obedient and craven,
Chill-blooded and goose-fleshed, 'neath hue of raven.

VII

Or this or that, what matters, and ask not;
Pity and Death are one.
That agony of flesh, which dims the sun,
When all the nerves are roads for the feet of Pain
To travel upon, like rain;
The older hopeless agony of age
That mocks with lunatic sick rage;
The entrenchèd Pain that's ever lying in
Body and blood, latent as mortal sin,
Like a snake stretched with cold magnetic eye,
And shadow-dappled sheath yet heaving flashingly;
Death only, when Pity prays, will gently quell.
His calm unquestioned spell
Flows like an odour upon the flagging sense.
But at whose nod
He comes, and passes hence,
If man's God is his God,
He does not tell.





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