He looked, he saw, and quickly went his way.

Should he have cried

On all the world to help that suffering thing,

Man, beast, or bestial changeling,

Or huge fish stranded choking im dry air

Without the sense to die?

Yet that great emerald blazing on its finger,

The proud and sneaking malice im its eye

That said, I suffer truly and yet malinger,

Long for and hate the stupid remedy.

Look: I am yourself for ever stuck half way.

And then he knew

Those he would summon were a multiplied

Mere replica of himself, and all had thought

Long since, No remedy here or anywhere

For that poor bag of bone

And hank of hair.

So he went on

And for a while could hear behind his back

A trifling rumour, mere imagined moan,

At last nothing at all. Yet now the lack

Began to irk him and the silence grew

Into a dead weight shut within his side,

And he knew

That he must carry it now, be patient and wise

Until perhaps i in the end time would devise

A meaning, a light and simple syllable wrought

By a chance breath.

And so he took the straight road to Ins death

In surly anger that was far from mourning.

Behind him followed hope and faith

Saying little. But something stood at that first turning

By itself, weeping. If he could keep his eyes

On that far distant mourner, would it save

Something? Would he find breath to call

To the others, and all be changed, that thing, and all?