A Son of Cain

F CAIN . . THE PALACE-BUILDERS . PAGE . 9 i2 . 18 THE LION I MET a Lion in the way Heigho his eyes were wild A bright magnificent beast of prey, A dzemons child. He scowled, and scowled, With bristling mane, And growled, and growled Like an angry pain. He stood aloof I liked him well, Heigho his ivories His lips were curled, and his smile was fell His breath steamed hot as the hate of hell, Hot froin the heart of hell. Ho, ho the Lion Such strength was his. He lashed his flanks with tawny tail, He beat the air as with a flail. How his fangs shone A ghoulish hunger t w h e d his lips His ears were angry at the tips He crouched upon his tapering hips The Lion His lithe mass, rhythmic as a wave, Sank rigid, to a passion wrougllt He seemed some splendid sin, a brave Embodiment of treacherous thought . In threatening guise there, grand and grim, It was pure joy to look at him. I saw the fireballs of his eyes, Death in his glittering flame-green eyes, In menacing thews and thighs. I had nor lance, nor any spear, But a palm twig No doubt had I, nor any fear I stepped the gorgeous creature near And plucked his wig Ha, ha the Lion, Surprised, his thunderous brows unknit The snarl died on his dazzling jaw And, furtively, his beard he bit, And fidgeted his paw He smoothed his cross and crumpled nose, And shuffled, shamed self-conscious thought Yapped yawned, and feigned to dose And, yielding to the spell I wrought, His shyness rose. I thrust nly hand amongst his mane, He winced, breathed hard with sick surlllise I bound his will as with a chain He blinked his rheumy eyes. Heigho the huge and ponderous beast, He did not hate 1ne in the least He purred, and purred, And pawed the ground You never heard A friendlier sound. His vaunting gone, My hand he licked with rusty tongue, And tween my knees his muzzle hung Ha-ha-ha-ha the Lion - His jowl I wrung I tumbled the great tangled brute His smelling brightness spurned my foot I planted on his flabby mouth Prone lay he like a beast in drouth. I left him fond and humbled there He whined b u t I had far to fare. The morrow-morn a man in arms Fate that way drew His life was sick with his souls harms, And him the Lion slew and far to the wandering eye the spreading moorlands mounded lie and beyond the heathery waste you spy a glean1 of the distant sea A wonlan is limned against the sky, hunched like a camel, lorn and high, over her gorgeous clouds go by, great lazy clouds trail idly hy to Bythe and Benderby. With hair as coarse as a horses tail, She dreamily leans on a lichened rail Thick at her feet the L raml letrsa il, And the silent llours steal over her. She seems some dead gods prophetess sly gust pluclts at a rnatted tress, An eye shows dark as a night moonless When the grim, low shadows crowd and press On the edges of pools in the wilderness And the wild shy things discover her, They have no fear of her wizened face That is dim with the dreams of a desert place...