Littell's Living Age/Volume 126/Issue 1629/The Swine-herd of Gadara

THE SWINE-HERD OF GADARA.

(A FANCY.)

No morsel in the wallet, and no drop
I' the bottle,—pleasant!—and five hours to come
Of pitiless August sunshine, ere I turn
My hogs along the weary sweltering league
That leads them home to John ben Ezra's sty.
Home?—aye, the brutes are happier than the man!
I would I were a swine too, hoof and snout,
So might I share that bestial sense of home,
And seek my straw contented. I am baked,
Broiled, dried-up, juiceless as the dusty bones
In the old tombs that honey-comb these hills
From base to crown. There's drink enough below,
If one could reach it, where Gennesareth
Lies all ablaze i' the sun. How pleasant 'twere
To plunge one's parching palate and hot skin
A minute in its waves! But I'm no goat:
One might as well, descended, try to tread
Its waters and keep footing, as essay
Descent adown this slope precipitous
That walls their flood.

Ah me! the old home-days

That once I knew—the life that once I led!
The meanest hireling in my father's fields
Hath all he would, and more: and I, the fool,
The peevish, fractious idiot, that must fret
And sicken of mere fulness of content —
That must forestall his heritage—that needs
Must fling to losel, pander, parasite,
In revel and in riot, what by this

Had grown the princeliest having of our tribe,
And all to reap ingratitude, contempt,
And penury, turned eyes, and giftless hands,
Sheer-starving here on half a drachm a day,
And self-detested in the loathsome trade
That earns the niggard pittance, must be fain
To grovel with the filthy brutes I guard,
And cheat my gnawing belly with the husks
They hardly care to crunch.

That screech again!

 There comes the howling madman from the tombs
That worries me with daily jibe and taunt
And curses: and he's strong, too — that's the worst —
Lean as he is, I saw him grapple once
With Dan of Gadara, the wrestling Jew,
And fling him, stunned and shattered, to the earth,
As I might smash a melon on the rock.
I would my old boar's tusk were in his flank!
Where shall I hide me? — Hah! he turns away.
Thanks to those trampers on the distant road
That catch his eye. He'll scare them! Little dream
Their worships of the lion in their path.
Why, what is this? I have seen him face ere now
A score of Herod's stoutest men-at-arms,
And scatter them in panic; and lo! here
He nears those pilgrims, cringing, like a slave
Before an angry master; or a hound
That eyes the lifted lash, nor dares to bite,
Nor dares to fly. I cannot catch his words, —
The distance blurs them; but his gesture owns
Some power his devil does not dare gainsay,
Some fascination that, despite himself.
Attracts and spells him. He's a proper man
That seems their chief, — a marvellous proper man!
With what a calm majestic confidence
He heads the huddling dozen at his heels!
By heaven, it's strange! — the madman kneels to him —
Clasps suppliant hands, — most wonderful! I catch
No glint of arms, no sign of force to quell
The fiend that dwells in him, yet — manifest
The maniac owns his Master; seems to wait
Command, submissive, rises, bows the head
Of reverence, takes the hindmost place i' the troop.
Meek as an infant, follows like a sheep
The pilgrims on their path, — most wonderful!
Pray heaven he come not back more mad than erst!
Curious! — what sudden gust was that which swept
Athwart me? What strange rushing as of wings
Innumerable plied? There's not a cloud
In all the dome of heaven, no sign of —— Hey!
What ails the swine? I've heard men say a pig
Can see the wind; there's something in this breeze.
Visible to them, I see not. How they start.
And leap, and whine, and squeal! — why, God's my life!
They're off — the old boar the foremost! Sheva! ho!
The lubber does not hear me; fast asleep,
I dare be sworn, beneath the sycamores, —
Quick! to the cliff and head them back! — too late!
There's a black torrent pouring down its side
That never will flow back! an avalanche
Of pork, — boar, sow, and pig and pigling, — bent
To perish! pell-mell, helter-skelter, down
They blunder headlong, shrieking, jostling, each
Borne down by the other, conscious of the plunge
To come, yet mad to take it. Souse! the lake
Is seething, foaming, round a hundred specks
Of struggling, floundering blackness!

Gone! all gone!

He made a gallant fight though, at the last.
For life, my tough old boar. Ha! ha! all sunk!
Drowned — dead as Pharaoh and his charioteers
In the red gulf! The unclean are cleaner now!
Old John ben Ezra drove a sinful trade
In curing hams: Moses! thou art avenged!
A judgment! yea, a judgment! Ha! ha! ha!
Who laughed beside? methought strange voices pealed
Derisive echo. Sheva's fled; there rests
No creature else that breathes — yet I could swear
I heard it. There's a something in the air,
The place, this sudden, silent solitude.
This wholesale monstrous bestial suicide,
That's weird and awful. Did I mock? God wot,
'Twas scarce a chance for mocking! Let me think
A moment, — I am sped! I dare not face
My master with a tale that whoso hears
Will deem me madder than the madman was,
Cured by the pilgrim, — cured, if I may trust
These eyes that saw him emptied of the fiend
That held him thralled.

That whirring as of wings

I heard, that passed me cliff wards, — was it thus
His devil parted? Hah! and towards my swine?
No; 'tis not possible! The Sadducee
That taught my boyhood used to laugh to scorn
The creed of angel, devil, and all forms
Of super-mortal essence: else indeed
'Twould seem What matter? what is done is done.
Bear he who will this news to Gadara
And Rabbi John ben Ezra. I not grudge
Sheva that errand, or the stripes he'll earn
For bearing it. I shall not claim from John
My last week's wage. My path must lie elsewhere

Henceforth, yet where I know not. On what road
I faint, what matter? or what ditch I choose
To die in?

Life is sweet, though — body and soul,

However oft they quarrel, yet are friends,
And loth to part. Existence may be nursed
On locusts, or the treasure of wild bees
Filched from the baffled bear: what hinders yet
To live so, free o' the desert, like that grim
Half-naked preacher that, two years agone,
Down south by Jordan in Bethabara,
Thundered " Repent!" in the astonished ears
Of both the jangling self-sufficient sects,
Watching in scornful pity while he cleansed
The simpler multitude. A viperous brood
He called them — well he might — but yet he bade
Not even these despair.

Repent! — Did chance

Or heaven recall that crying? Is there hope
Ev'n yet for such as I? ——

I will arise,

And go unto my father, and will say
Unto him, "O my father! I have sinned
Both against heaven and in thy sight, and I
Am no more worthy to be called thy son!"
Home! home! what sweet old music long unheard
That thought hath reawaked! God grant it prove
No mocker, for it seems to promise there
A father reconciled, a son forgiven:
Home! home! and hope! Oh! should the dream come true!

H. K.

⁠Blackwood's Magazine.