Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SLAVE, by PATRICK MACGILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SLAVE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The olden chronicles tell us akbar the slave was / strong
Last Line: Only an outworn story, now — as in long ago.
Subject(s): Death; Slavery; Vengeance; Dead, The; Serfs


THE olden chronicles tell us Akbar the slave was strong,
On the woes of his brothers in bondage he brooded and sorrowed long,
Akbar, the slave of Reienos, scarred with the iron and thong.

He toiled in the field and forest and furrow early and late,
Dragging through ruts and ridges, with slouching and servile gait;
But Akbar the slave was human, and Akbar the slave could hate.

Under the goad of the master, sweating as horses sweat,
Scorned by the page and lady appareled in satinet,
The sinewy slave could suffer, suffer and not forget.

When the heat of the day was over and the tremulous stars looked wan,
When night hung low on the turret, drawbridge and barbican,
Into the darkling forest stealthily stole a man.

Silent as steals a panther, quick as a wolf on prowl,
A shadow among the shadows, almost unseen by the owl,
As the watch dog saw the figure in awe it filled the night with its howl.

In a hut in the depth of the thicket, rugged, misshapen, rude,
Akbar the slave of Reienos in the spiritless solitude,
With the cleverness hate had given, fashioned a slab of wood.

The prong of a graip for a gimlet, a sharpened spade for a plane,
He shapened it level and specular, smooth as the shield of a thane,
Toiling alone in the darkness, filled with a passion insane.

With withes of the seasoned willows he tied it as firm as steel
Down to the bench in the dwelling, filled with a giant's zeal,
Then made he with maniac labour a grim and horrible wheel.

With the rim of flexible pinewood, the lissome fir for the spoke,
A groove and a rope around it, a turning handle of oak,
Thus Akbar spoke in the darkness, timing his hammer's stroke —

"The brutes of the byres are tended, there is food for the hunting pack,
He has trampled the crumbs from his table, the crumbs that my brothers lack,
Reienos has tortured and lashed us — now I will pay him back.

"Lord, I have waited to see Thee strike him down in his crime,
I who am nearly outworn, whipped like a cur in my prime,
Vengeance is Thine it is spoken, but I cannot abide Thy time."

The arrogant Lord Reienos strode through the woods alone,
Far through the gloomy forest thinking of things unknown,
Reienos the strong and fearless, hard of heart as a stone.

As a panther hangs on its quarry, as a vulture circles afar,
A sinister figure followed, silent as moves a star,
Akbar, the grim avenger, marked with the sear and the scar.

The rubescent sun sank westward, tingeing with vermeil dyes,
The shimmering leaves of the forest, the gentian dome of the skies,
And showing the tigerish hate in the villein's passionate eyes.

A crash in the brake behind him, like when a boar breaks through —
Reienos turned in anger, turned, and saw, and knew —
And the slayer laughed in the silence for the deed he lusted to do.

Laughed and laid hold of his master, gripped him fiercely and strong —
Seized like a leaf in the cyclone, borne as a straw is along,
Reienos thought on his Maker, Akbar remembered the thong.

In the zest of the whirlwind foray Reienos had led the way,
When the noise of the shields and spears rang to the vault of day,
But death at the hands of a villein — Reienos began to pray.

Into the gloomy cabin drear as the pit of dread,
Down on the slab he placed him, his hands above his head,
Tied to the wheel, his body fastened with withe and thread.

"Pray to heaven for mercy as your hours are almost done,
The lowly slave at your castle may look on the morrow's sun,
But two will pass ere it rises, and thou, Reienos, art one —

"One, and I am the other — strung from your castle wall —
Pray — I have prayed for years outside your lordly hall,
But God in Heaven was busy watching the sparrows fall."

Flaxen pale the moonshine glimmered on dune and tree,
A groan came borne on the breezes, lone and piteously,
A wheel is turned in the cabin, a maniac laughs in glee,

A meteor streaks the impearled dome with its fiery light,
Cluster on cluster they sparkle stars that are diamond bright,
Another turn in the torture, another moan in the night.

Falling as falls the spice flower adown the mane of the breeze,
Slowly the molten moonfire fell on the bearded trees,
Where the eerie midnight vampires bowed at their fetishes.

Borne in dismal cadence, the groans of the sufferer
Sank away in the silence, died on the midnight air,
And only the grim avenger watched by the body there.

They found the slave in the dawning, beside the lord of the hall,
They hung him in scorn and fury, high from the castle wall,
The man who wept for his people, the man who tired of his thrall.

Only an ancient story, fraught with its weight of woe,
Of the love of a slave for freedom, and the hate that crushed him low —
Only an outworn story, now — as in long ago.





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