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Yet stay! my Syrian blinketh gratefully,
Protested his devotion is my price–
Suppose I write, what harms not, tho’ he steal?
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,
What set me off a-writing first of all.
An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!
For, be it this town’s barrenness–or else
The man had something in the look of him–
His case has struck me far more than ’tis worth. 70
So, pardon if–(lest presently I lose,
In the great press of novelty at hand,
The care and pains this somehow stole from me)
I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind.
Almost in sight–for, wilt thou have the truth?
The very man is gone from me but now,
Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.
Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!

‘Tis but a case of mania: subinduced
By epilepsy, at the turning-point 80
Of trance prolonged unduly some three days
When, by the exhibition of some drug
Or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art
Unknown to me and which ’twere well to know,
The evil thing, out-breaking all at once,
Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,–
But, flinging (so to speak) life’s gates too wide,
Making a clear house of it too suddenly,
The first conceit that entered might inscribe
Whatever it was minded on the wall 90
So plainly at that vantage, as it were,
(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent
Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls
The just-returned and new-established soul
Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart
That henceforth she will read or these or none.
And first–the man’s own firm conviction rests
That he was dead (in fact they buried him)
–That he was dead and then restored to life
By a Nazarene physician of his tribe: 100
–‘Sayeth, the same bade “Rise,” and he did rise,
“Such cases are diurnal,” thou wilt cry.
Not so this figment!–not, that such a fume,
Instead of giving way to time and health,
Should eat itself into the life of life.
As saffron tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all!
For see, how he takes up the after-life,
The man–it is one Lazarus, a Jew,
Sanguine, proportioned, fifty years of age,
The body’s habit wholly laudable, 110
As much, indeed, beyond the common health.
As he were made and put aside to show.
Think, could we penetrate by any drug
And bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh,
And bring it clear and fair, by three days’ sleep!
Whence has the man the balm that brightens all?
This grown man eyes the world now like a child.
Some elders of his tribe, I should premise,
Led in their friend, obedient as a sheep,
To bear my inquisition. While they spoke, 120
Now sharply, now with sorrow,–told the case,–
He listened not except I spoke to him,
But folded his two hands and let them talk,
Watching the flies that buzzed: and yet no fool.
And that’s a sample how his years must go.