So Merival Returning from the river with the body Of Elenor Murray thought about the woman; Recalled her school days in LeRoy--the night When she was graduated at the High School; thought About her father, mother, girlhood friends; And stories of her youth came back to him. The whispers of her leaving home, the trips She took, her father's loveless ways. And wonder For what she did and made of self, possessed His thinking; and the fancy grew in him No chance for like appraisal had been his Of human worth and waste, this man who knew Both life and books. And lately he had read The history of King William and his book. And even the night before this Elenor's body Was found beside the river--this he read, Perhaps, he thought, was reading it when Elenor Was struck down or was choked. How strange the hour Whose separate place finds Merival with a book, And Elenor with death, brings them together, And for result blends book and death!... He knew By Domesday Book King William had a record Of all the crown's possessions, had the names Of all land-holders, had the means of knowing The kingdom's strength for war; it gave the data How to increase the kingdom's revenue. It was a record in a case of titles, Disputed or at issue to appeal to. So Merival could say: My inquests show The country's wealth or poverty in souls, And what the country's strength is, who by right May claim his share-ship in the country's life; How to increase the country's glory, power. Why not a Domesday Book in which are shown A certain country's tenures spiritual? And if great William held great council once To make inquiry of the nation's wealth, Shall not I as a coroner in America, Inquiring of a woman's death, make record Of lives which have touched hers, what lives she touched; And how her death by surest logic touched This life or that, was cause of causes, proved The event that made events? So Merival Brought in a jury for the inquest work As follows: Winthrop Marion, learned and mellow, A journalist in Chicago, keeping still His residence at LeRoy. And David Borrow, A sunny pessimist of varied life, Ingenious thought, a lawyer widely read. And Samuel Ritter, owner of the bank, A classmate of the coroner at Harvard. Llewellyn George, but lately come from China, A traveler, intellectual, anti-social Searcher for life and beauty, devotee Of such diversities as Nietzsche, Plato. Also a Reverend Maiworm noted for Charitable deeds and dreams. And Isaac Newfeldt Who in his youth had studied Adam Smith, And since had studied tariffs, lands and money, Economies of nations. And because They were the friends of Merival, and admired His life and work, they dropped their several tasks To serve as jurymen.