SONG OF THE LEPER

He was a nauseous leper

Who in the ruins was;

There ever and anon

The hollow wind did pass,

And wild and feeble and yellow all

        Was the grass.

And the leper sang this song:

«The leper is excluded from his race,

        The leper is driven out,

        The leper is thrust out

        From hall and street and way;

        He must not show his face

        Where human beings may.

        For him there are whips and stones;

        He cannot even stay

        Where mongrels fight for bones

        And are allowed to play.

«No beast as the poor leper is

Worms and snakes have greater bliss.

        But the leper is accurst

        And he knows that well accurst

Is he because a nauseous leper,

Of evil things the worst.

«The toad, the newt, the viper

        Are tolerate and borne,

        But the vile and nauseous leper

        Makes vomit in deep scorn;

        Repugnance is for him

        Inevitably born

«Sometimes he hears the laughter

Of human feast to come,

And music followed, after

By sounds of peace and of home.

        Upon the wind they stray,

        The wind bears them away,

And the nauseous leper, he remains,

        Through night, through day,

Alone with his sores, with his pains.

And bands of strollers pass,

Taking the road afar,

For in the ruins they know well

The leper's sores there are.

And if perchance they see

The leper from their way,

He sees their finger point

And he knows that they say:

«He is the nauseous leper

Who in the ruins doth sit;

He is viler than the plague,

More loathsome far than it;

If near to him we dared do come

Upon him we would spit.»

«Poor leper who is a man,

Poor leper who is alive,

Under his being's ban,

Whose torture's chain unearned

No pity comes to rive.

«A Hand of Might created

The newt, the toad, the viper,

But gave them not its worst;

Kept them from loneliness,

Gave them their kindred's bliss.

        But that hand made the leper

And it made the leper leper:

And that Hand Almighty is

        Of all things the most curst.