The Collected Poems of S Weir Mitchell Author:Silas Weir Mitchell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RESPONSIBILITY Thus, lying among roses in the garden of the Great Inn after certain cups of wine, I, Attar El Din, sang of things to come, when, I being dead ... more »a day, the Angels of Affirmation and Denial should struggle for my soul. " I, Moonkir, the angel, am come To count of his good deeds the sum, For this mortal death-stricken and dumb." " I, Nekkir, the clerk of ill thought, Am here to dispute what hath wrought This breeder of song, come to naught. " Let us call from the valleys of gloom, From the day's death of sleep and the tomb, The wretched he lured to their doom." Then, such as my song had made weep Came parting the tent-folds of sleep, Or rose from their earth-couches deep. Spake A Voice : " I sat beside the cistern on the sand, When this man's song did take me in its hand, And hurled me, helpless, as a sling the stone That knows not will nor pity of its own. Within my heart was seed of murder sown, So once I struck — yea, twice, when he did groan." Spake A Voice : "Ay, that was the song Which I heard as I lay 'Gainst my camel's broad flanks, Thinking how to repay The death-debt so bitter with wrong. I rose, as he sang, to rejoice With a blessing of thanks; For the song ruled my slack will and me, Like one who doth lustily throw The power of hand and of knee To string up to purpose a bow. Quick I stole through the dark, but delayed To hear how, with every-day phrase, Such as useth a child or a maid, From praise of decision to praise Of the quiet of evening he fell. Thus a torrent grows still on the plain To mirror how come through the grain The women with jars to the well. Swift I drew o'er the sands cool and gray, With my knife in my teeth held to slay. Hot and wet f...« less