Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/482

 466 CRITICAL STUDIES The snow, those flames were Guide's eyes in front, And all five found and footed it, the track, To where a threshold-streak of warmth and light Betrayed the villa door with life inside, While an inch outside were those blood-bright eyes, And black lips wrinkling o'er the flash of teeth, And tongues that lolled — oh God, that niadcst man ! They parleyed in their language. Then one whined — That was the policy and master-stroke — Deep in his throat whispered what seemed a name — ' Open to Caponsacchi ! ' Guido cried : ' Gabriel ! ' cried Lucifer at Eden-gate. Wide as a heart, opened the door at once, Showing the joyous couple, and their child The two-weeks' mother, to the wolves, the wolves To them. Close eyes ! And when the corpses lay Stark-stretched, and those the wolves, their wolf- work done. Were safe embosomed by the night again, I knew a necessary change in things ; As when the worst watch of the night gives way. And there comes duly, to take cognisance. The scrutinising eye-point of some star — And who despairs of a new daybreak now ? Lo, the first ray protruded on those five ! It reached them, and each felon writhed transfixed. Awhile they palpitated on the spear Motionless over Tophet : stand or fall ? ' I say, the spear should fall — should stand, I say I ' Cried the world come to judgment, granting grace Or dealing doom according to world's wont, Those world's-bystanders grouped on Rome's cross-road At prick and summons of the primal curse Which bids man love as well as make a lie. There prattled they, discoursed the right and wrong. Turned wrong to right, proved wolves sheep and sheep wolves, So that you scarce distinguished fell from fleece ; Till out spoke a great guardian of the fold, Stood up, put forth his hand that held the crook, And motioned that the arrested point decline : Horri!)ly off, the wriggling dead-weight reeled. Rushed to the bottom and lay ruined there."