GRAFT
Hughes, Hugh J.
GRAFT By HUGH J. HUGHES THERE was a fen where rotting windfall lay Half sunken in the ooze, begirt with slime, A breeding ness of ill and loathsome things. THERE the begotten of the waters...
...UNTIL once more went Sorrow hand in hand With those who dwelt in sickening croft and town—* They who had boasted their deliverance...
...BREEDING anew the hosts that crept and crawled...
...How they laughed and sang, And told the story to their children's sons, Of him who came to their deliverance...
...Breeding anew the fever and the Death...
...BUT evermore men learned to fear the fen: It sent the fever riding on the winds, It sent the vapors, and behind them Death...
...In all the land no heorrt but throbbed for pain...
...THEN the rejoicing...
...ABOUT it lay a land of meadows wide, Of laden fields and goodly croft and town, Of life, and love, and love's sweet wonderment...
...Breeding anew the misty hosts that swarmed...
...Through all the land the terror of the fen...
...THERE the begotten of the waters crawled, There the begotten of the mire crept, There fever walked, and Death held carnival...
...UNMINDFUL that the stream ran slack and grown Into a wier of water-cress and iveccl, Until at length the waters ceased their flow...
...THEN came a man at length with skill and brawn, Who trenched the earth for many a grudging league And sapped the ivaters, and the fen was not...
...SO passed the years: full many a human span...
Vol. 1 • July 1909 • No. 29
