self-same place,

With an outburst blackening still the old bad fighting-face:

But the son crouched all a-tremble like any lamb new-ycaned.

When he went to the burial, someone's staff he borrowed-tottered and leaned.

But his lips were loose, not locked,

- kept muttering, mumbling. "There! 20 At his cursing and swearing!" the youngsters cried: but the elders thought "In prayer."

A boy threw stones: he picked them up

and stored them in his vest.

So tottered, muttered, mumbled he, till he
died, perhaps found rest.
"Is there a reason in nature for these hard
hearts?" O Lear,

That a reason out of nature must turn
them soft, seems clear!

IVÀN IVÀNOVITCH.

"THEY tell me, your carpenters," quoth I to my friend the Russ,

Make a simple hatchet serve as a toolbox serves with us.

Arm but each man with his axe, 'tis a
hammer and saw and plane

And chisel, and what know I else?
We should imitate in vain
The mastery wherewithal, by a flourish of
just the adze,

He cleaves, clamps, dovetails in, -no 30 need of our nails and brads,

The manageable pine: 'tis said he could shave himself

With the axe, - so all adroit, now a giant and now an elf,

Does he work and play at once!"

Quoth my friend the Russ to me, "Ay, that and more beside on occasion! It scarce may be

You never heard tell a tale told children, time out of mind,

By father and mother and nurse, for a moral that's behind,

Which children quickly seize. If the incident happened at all,

We place it in Peter's time when hearts were great not small,

Germanised, Frenchified. I wager 'tis old to you

As the story of Adam and Eve, and pos- 40 sibly quite as true."

the Throughout wild, aIts ancient sway, suck back the world into 50 hungered to resume

its womb:

Defrauded by man's craft which clove

from North to South

This highway broad and straight e'en from the Neva's mouth

To Moscow's gates of gold. So, spot of life and spirt

Of fire aforesaid, burn, each village deathbegirt

By wall and wall of pine- unprobed undreamed abyss.

Early one winter morn, in such a village as this,

About two-thirds of a mile.

Snow-whitened everywhere except the middle road

Ice-roughed by track of sledge, there

worked by his abode

Ivan Ivanovitch, the carpenter, employed On a huge shipmast trunk; his axe now trimmed and toyed

With branch and twig, and now some chop athwart the bole

Changed bole to billets, bared at once the sap and soul.

About him, watched the work his neighbours sheepskin clad;

Each bearded mouth puffed steam, each grey eye twinkled glad

To see the sturdy arm which, never stopping play,

10 Proved strong man's blood still boils, freeze winter as he may.

Sudden, a burst of bells. Out of the road, on edge

Of the hamlet horse's hoofs galloping. "How, a sledge?

What's here?" cried all as in, up to the open space,

Workyard and market-ground, folk's common meeting-place,

Stumbled on, till he fell, in one last bound
for life,

A horse: and, at his heels, a sledge held
"Dmitri's wife!

Back without Dmitri to! and children
where are they?

Only a frozen corpse!"

Which hid the naked truth O loud and long the scream

She gave, as if all power of voice within her throat

Poured itself wild away to waste in one dread note!

Then followed gasps and sobs, and then the steady flow

Of kindly tears: the brain was saved, a man might know.

Down fell her face upon the good friend's propping knee;

His broad hands smoothed her head, as fain to brush it free

From fancies, swarms that stung like bees unhived. He soothed

"Loukèria, Loùscha!" - still he, fond- 4: ling, smoothed and smoothed. At last her lips formed speech.

But little there was to be praised in the
boy, and a plenty to blame.
I loved him with heart and soul, yes
but, deal him a blow for a fault,
He would sulk for whole days. 'Foolish

boy! lie still or the villain will vault, 5c Will snatch you from over my head!'

No use! he cries, screams, - who
can hold

Fast a boy in a frenzy of fear! It follows
as I foretold!

The Satan-face snatched and snapped: I tugged, I tore -- and then

His brother too needs must shrick! If one must go, 'tis men

The Tsar needs, so we hear, not ailing
boys! Perhaps

My hands relaxed their grasp, got tangled
in the wraps:
God, he was gone! I looked: there
tumbled the cursed crew,

Each fighting for a share: too busy to
pursue!

That's so far gain at least: Droug, gallop another verst

God sends we beat

them, arrive the first!

Shall I lean

Pad, pad!

A mother who boasts two boys was ever 60 accounted rich:

Some have not a boy: some have, but lose him, God knows which

Is worse: how pitiful to see your weakling pine

And pale and pass away! Strong brats, this pair of mine!

"O misery! for while I settle to what near

seems

Content, I am 'ware again of the tramp,
and again there gleams -
Point and point the line, eyes, levelled
green brassy fire!

So soon is resumed your chase? Will
nothing appease, nought tire
The furies? And yet I think — I am cer-
tain the race is slack,

And the numbers are nothing like. Not
a quarter of the pack!

10 Feasters and those full-fed are staying behind... Ah why?

We'll sorrow for that too soon! Now,

gallop, reach home, and die,

Nor ever again leave house, to trust our life in the trap

For life - we call a sledge! Teriòscha, in my lap!

Yes, I'll lie down upon you, tight-tic you
with the strings

Here of my heart! No fear, this time,
your mother flings
Flings? I flung?

Never! but think!

a woman, after all Contending with a wolf! Save you I must and shall,

-

Tough Droug and I, - my babe, my boy that shall be man,

My man that shall be more, do all a hunter

can

To trace and follow and find and catch 50 and crucify

Wolves, wolfkins, all your crew! A thousand deaths shall die

The whimperingest cub that ever squeezed the teat!

'Take that!' we'll stab you with, - 'the tenderness we met

When, wretches, you danced roundnot this, thank God - not this! Hellhounds, we baulk you!'

"But Ah, God above! Bliss, bliss --
Not the band, no! And yet -
Droug knows him! One
This only of them all has said 'She saves
a son!'

His fellows disbelieve such luck: but he
believes,

He lets them pick the bones, laugh at him 60 in their sleeves:

He's off and after us, one speck, one spot, one ball

Grows bigger, bound on bound, one

wolf as good as all!

"All fight's in vain: This time the green brass points pierce to my very brain.

I fall

fall as I ought quite on the babe I guard:

I overspread with flesh the whole of him.
Too hard

To die this way, torn piecemeal? Move
hence? Not I one inch!

10 Gnaw through me, through and through: flat thus I lie nor flinch!

O God, the feel of the fang furrowing my shoulder! - see!

It grinds it grates the bone. O Kirill under mé.

Could I do more? Beside he knew wolf's way to win:

I clung, closed round like wax: yet in he wedged and in,

Past my neck, past my breasts, my heart, until . how feels

The onion-bulb your knife parts, pushing through its peels,

Till out you scoop its clove wherein lie stalk and leaf

And bloom and seed unborn?

no need of more!

cast

Taxed for a second stroke Ivan Ivàno- 40 vitch.

Which done, he turns, goes in, closes the door behind.

The others mute remain, watching the blood-snake wind

Into a hiding-place among the splinterheaps.

At length, still mute, all move: one lifts, from where it steeps

Redder each ruddy rag of pine, head: two more

- the

Take up the dripping body: then, mute 50 still as before,

Move in a sort of march, march on till marching ends

Opposite to the church; where halting, who suspends,

By its long hair, the thing, deposits in its place

The piteous head: once more the body
shows no trace

Of harm done: there lies whole the
Loùscha, maid and wife
And mother, loved until this latest of her
life.

Then all sit on the bank of snow which
bounds a space

Kept free before the porch for judgment: just the place!

Presently all the souls, man, woman, child, which make

the sake The village up, are found assembling for 6c