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Had not, with more than human courage
And worthier Macedon than our age,
His peerless rearguard, young Achates,
Just saved the Anabaptist vates:
O’er the loud tumult sings the vat,
Three roundest of the foe lie flat.
The frighted crowds recoil a pace
Irresolute, a moment waver.
That moment’s grace, that ceded space,
Have turned the scales in Blasio’s favour.
Helvetia’s hero and her prophet
Are half-way down the street, and off it
Cut like two swallows kestrel-chivied.
Flap! through an arch obscure, and, livid
From throat to brow, each muscle straining,
Hurl themselves at the oaken graining
Of the huge cumbrous door, impassive
As faith to reason; cobwebbed, massive,
The scarp with grit, the hinge encumbered
With scaly rust, rebellious lumbered,
Dry, stiff and stark, through a small are
The panelled logs—then scraping grounded
Blocked by the shingle: nerves a-tingle,
Like caoutchouc balls the two saints bounded
Back through the gloom; then, blinded by their
Own sweat, with heads breast-high rebutted
’Gainst the derisive woodwork, either
To perish in the attempt or shut it.
At last it yielded, slow, resentful,
As if reluctant planks so orthodox
Should shield such reprobates, then went full
Tilt, crash! one valve ’gainst th’ other half,
