Straining with as great pain .as he had
Once dragged himself from the drying
Blood he drew. Three hundred lives they said
He took and would not let his own life
Be captive even. The smell of searing hemp
And flesh startles like the scream of birds
And should have waked whoever slept, the guards
Of live men or dead. In the brief
Flare of new fuel could be seen
A running giant, silent, wrists caught
Between the thighs, the caricature of a god.
It
was the fox's way he had followed
From the quarry on his first escape.
No way now. There was no
Way. One may kill three hundred, yet
At last there is no way. He cannot keep
His life they said if we have his heart.
They flung him to the ground and prepared knives.
Was it out of awe or anger they
Opened the breast which was closed to fear;
Did they mock or pray as they cut
Flesh, crushed ribs and laid all
Open to the alien chill of air.
He did not scream. Tiny veins stood out
Upon the eyelids and sweat collected
At their corners. From the slowly swinging
Eyes all fled when they saw
The heart of him who stopped three hundred hearts:
From its membranes grew a coarse hair,
Brown, not matted, and quite dry.
