"Whelped on the desert sands, and desert bred
From dugs whose sustenance was blood alone--
A life translated out of other lives,
I grew the king of beasts; the hurricane
Leaned like a feather on my royal fell;
I took the Hyrcan tiger by the scruff
And tore him piecemeal; my hot bowels laughed
And my fangs yearned for prey. Earth was my lair:
I slept on the red desert without fear:
I roamed the jungle depths with less design
Than e'en to lord their solitude; on crags
That cringe from lightning--black and blasted fronts
That crouch beneath the wind-bleared stars, I told
My heart's fruition to the universe,
And all night long, roaring my fierce defy,
I thrilled the wilderness with aspen terrors,
And challenged death and life. . . ."
Again:
"Naked I stood upon the raked arena
Beneath the pennants of Vespasian,
While seried thousands gazed--strangers from Caucasus,
Men of the Grecian Isles, and Barbary princes,
To see me grapple with the counterpart
Of that I had been--the raptorial jaws,
The arms that wont to crush with strength alone,
The eyes that glared vindictive.--Fallen there,
Vast wings upheaved me; from the Alpine peaks
Whose avalanches swirl the valley mists
And whelm the helpless cottage, to the crown
Of Chimborazo, on whose changeless jewels
The torrid rays recoil, with ne'er a cloud
To swathe their blistered steps, I rested not,
But preyed on all that ventured from the earth,
An outlaw of the heavens.--But evermore
Must death release me to the jungle shades;
And there like Samson's grew my locks again
In the old walks and ways, till scapeless fate
Won me as ever to the haunts of men,
Luring my lives with battle and with love." . . .
I quote less than a quarter of the poem, of which the rest is just as
good, and I ask: Who of us all handles his English vocabulary better
than Mr. Blood?[7]