['WILL sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,

Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,

With elbows wide, fists clinched to prop his chin.

And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,

And feels about his spine small eftthings course,

Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:

And while above his head a pompionplant,

Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,

Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,

And now a flower drops with a bee inside,

And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,

He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross

And recross till they weave a spiderweb

(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times),

And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,

Touching that other, whom his dam called God.

Because to talk about Him, vexes - ha,

Could He but know! and time to vex

is now,

When talk is safer than in wintertime.

Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep In confidence he drudges at their task :

And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!

By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue

That pricks deep into oakwarts for a

worm,

And says a plain word when she finds her prize,

the moon.

"Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,

But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;

Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:

Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,

And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.

"Thinketh, it came of being ill at

ease:

He hated that He cannot change His cold,

Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish

That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,

And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine

O'the lazy sea, her stream thrusts far amid,

A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;

Only, she ever sickened, found repulse

At the other kind of water, not her life

(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun),

Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,

And in her old bounds buried her despair,

Hating and loving warmth alike; so He.

"Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,

Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.

Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;

Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,

That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown,

He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye

themselves

That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks

About their hole - He made all these and more,

Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?

He could not, Himself, make a second self

To be His mate: as well have made Himself:

He would not make what He mislikes or slights,

An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains;

But did, in envy, listlessness, or sport, Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be ·

Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,

Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,

Things He admires and mocks too,that is it.

Because, so brave, so better though they be,

It nothing skills if He begin to plague. Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,

Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,

Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss, Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,

Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,

And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.

Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay :

Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban

Able to fly ?-for, there, see, he hath wings,

And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,

And there, a sting to do his foes offence,

Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg,

And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.

Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,

Drinking the mash, with brain be-
come alive,
Making and marring clay at will?
So He.

"Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,

Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.

'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs

That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,

Loving not, hating not, just choosing

But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease? Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that, What knows, the something over

Setebos That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,

Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.

There may be something quiet o'er His head,

Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,

Since both derive from weakness in

some way.

I joy because the quails come; would not joy

Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:

This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth. 'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,

To what is quiet and hath happy life ; Next looks down here, and out of very spite

Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,

These good things to match those, as hips do grapes.

"Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.

Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at

his books Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle :

Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped, Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;

Has peeled a wand and called it by a

name;

Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe

The eyed skin of a supple ocelot ; And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,

A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,

Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,

And saith she is Miranda and my wife;

'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill

crane

He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;

Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,

Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,

And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge

In a hole o' the rock, and calls him Caliban ;

A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.

'Plays thus at being Prosper in a

way,

Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.

Also it pleaseth Setebos to work, Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,

By no means for the love of what is worked.

"Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world

When all goes right, in this safe sum. mer-time,

And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,

Than trying what to do with wit and strength.

'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,

And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk, And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,

And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,

And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,

Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.

No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake:

'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.

'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!

One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.

He hath a spite against me, that I know,

Just as He favors Prosper, who knows why?

So it is, all the same, as well I find. 'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm

With stone and stake to stop shetortoises

Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,

Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,

Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its

large tongue,

And licked the whole labor flat: so

Please Him and hinder this? What Prosper does ?

Aha, if he would tell me how! Not He!

There is the sport: discover how or die!

All need not die, for of the things o' the isle

Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;

Those at His mercy,- why, they

please Him most When... when . . . well, never try the same way twice! Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.

You must not know His ways, and play Him off,

Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:

'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears

But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,

And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:

'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise, Curls up into a ball, pretending death