Page:The passing of Korea.djvu/424

The master-founder stands with angry brow
Before the bell, across whose graven side
A fissure deep proclaims his labour naught.
For thrice the furnace blast has yielded up
Its glowing treasure to the mould, and thrice
The tortured metal, writhing as in pain,
Has burst the brazen casement of the bell.
And now like a dumb bullock of the lists,
That stands at bay while nimble toreadors
Fling out the crimson challenge in his face,
And the hot, clamouring crowd with oaths demand
The fatal stroke ; so hangs the sullen bell
From his thwart beam, refusing still to lend
His voice to swell the song hymeneal,
To toll the requiem of the passing dead,
Or bid the sun good-night with curfew sad.
The master-founder speaks : " If but an ounce
Of that rare metal, which the spirits hide
From mortal sight, were mingled with the flux,
It would a potion prove so powerful
To ease the throes of birth and in the place
Of disappointment bring fruition glad."
And lo ! a royal edict, at the hand
Of couriers swift, speeds o'er the land like flame
Across the stubble-drift of sun-dried plains.
" Let prayer be made to spirits of the earth
That they may render up their treasure, lest
Our royal city, like a Muslim mute,
Shall have no tongue to voice her joy or pain."
The great sun reddened with the altar smoke ;
The very clouds caught up their trailing skirts
And fled the reek of burning hecatombs ;
But still the nether spirits gave no sign.
When, look! a mother witch comes leading through
The city gate a dimpled child and cries,
" If to the molten mass you add this child,
'Twill make a rare amalgam, aye, so rare
That he who once has heard the bell's deep tone
Shall ever after hunger for it more
Than for the voice of mother, wife or child."
Again the furnace fires leap aloft ;
Again the broken fragments of the bell
Cast off their torpor at the touch of flame.
Unpitying are the hands that cast the child
Into that seething mass. Fit type of Hell !
Nay, type of human shame, that innocence