"I would know why," -- he said -- "thou wishedst me
Less legs and bigger brows; and when?"
"Wouldst know?
Learn then," cried Gris Grillon and stirred himself,
In a great spasm of passion mixed with pain;
"An thou hadst had more courage and less speed,
Then, ah my God! then could not I have been
That piteous gibe of a man thou see'st I am.
Sir, having no disease, nor any taint
Nor old hereditament of sin or shame,
-- But, feeling the brave bound and energy
Of daring health that leaps along the veins --
As a hart upon his river banks at morn,
-- Sir, wild with the urgings and hot strenuous beats
Of manhood's heart in this full-sinewed breast
Which thou may'st even now discern is mine,
-- Sir, full aware, each instant in each day,
Of motions of great muscles, once were mine,
And thrill of tense thew-knots, and stinging sense
Of nerves, nice, capable and delicate:
-- Sir, visited each hour by passions great
That lack all instrument of utterance,
Passion of love -- that hath no arm to curve;
Passion of speed -- that hath no limb to stretch;
Yea, even that poor feeling of desire
Simply to turn me from this side to that,
(Which brooded on, into wild passion grows
By reason of the impotence that broods)
Balked of its end and unachievable
Without assistance of some foreign arm,