“Five days; in three the messengers returned: In three—in two—the Accursèd will be here, Or blacken yonder Sleemish with his crew Descending. Then those idiots, kerne and slave— The mighty flame into itself takes all— Full swarm will fly to meet him! Fool! fool! fool! The man hath snared me with those gifts he sent; Else had I barred the mountains: now ’twere late, My people in revolt. Whole weeks his horde Will throng my courts, demanding board and bed, With hosts by Dichu sent to flout my pang, And sorer make my charge. My granaries sacked, My larder lean as ship six months ice-bound, The man I hate will rise, and open shake The invincible banner of his mad new Faith, Till all that hear him shout, like winds or waves, Belief; and I be left sole recusant; Or else perhaps that Fury who prevails At times o’er knee-joints of reluctant men, By magic imped, may crumble into dust By force my disbelief.” He raised his head, And lo, before him lay the sea far ebbed Sad with a sunset all but gone: the reeds Sighed in the wind, and sighed a sweeter voice Oft heard in childhood—now the last time heard: “Believe!” it whispered. Vain the voice! That hour, Stirred from the abyss, the sins of all his life Around him rose like night—not one, but all— That earliest sin which, like a dagger, pierced His mother’s heart; that worst, when summer drouth Parched the brown vales, and infants thirsting died, While from full pail he gorged his swine with milk And flung the rest away. Sin-walled he stood: God’s Angels could not pierce that cincture dread, Nor he look through it. Yet he dreamed he saw: His life he saw; its labours, and its gains Hard won, long-waited, wonder of his foes; The manifold conquests of a Will oft tried; Victory, Defeat, Retrieval; last, that scene Around him spread: the wan sea and grey rocks; And he was ’ware that on that self-same ledge He, Milcho, thirty years gone by, had stood, While pirates pushed to sea, leaving forlorn On that wild shore a scared and weeping boy, (His price two yearling kids and half a sheep) Thenceforth his slave. Not sole he mused that hour. The Demon of his House beside him stood Upon that iron coast, and whispered thus: “Masterful man art thou for wit and strength; Yet girl-like standst thou brooding! Weave a snare! He comes for gold, this prophet. All thou hast Heap in thy house; then fire it! In far lands Build thee new fortunes. Frustrate thus shall he Stare but on stones, his destined vassal scaped.”