# 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.