rimbaud, part 2

the deputy grunts and returns to his chair but his gray rebel cap stands up on his hair a cold blue flame hangs eye-level in air hissing like a rattlesnake trapped in its lair the flame retreats to the bars of the cell the hobo laughs - a hyena from hell! his lips and his eyeballs begin to swell as he whispers hoarse "i've a tale to tell only a tale - i've nothing to sell it begins with the tolling of a silver bell over a green and dew-dropped dell" the deputy answers "i don't feel well" "i was once a man - a humble one, true with the high and mighty i had nothing to do all week i read the testament new and on sunday i read the old one too i lectured the low and bowed to the great i emptied my glass and cleaned my plate and thanked the lord, both early and late for giving me such a happy fate i was deacon of a little church a bluebird sang from a sunlit perch in a purple elm beside a snowy birch when life gave a sudden and terrible lurch" the wolfman drones on, and on, and on the deputy nods - he begins to yawn the jail is a board, he is only a pawn his eyeballs fade like the moon at dawn the cell bars twist in the wolfman's claws his piteous story has come to a pause his white teeth laugh in his hairy jaws the sleeping deputy hears applause the sheriff shakes his head at the dogs dismay "we'll have to come back at break of day" mungo clears his throat to say "i don't think that is at all the right way this wretch has broken the laws of the town i will not rest until i've hunted him down what use for the mayor a martyr's crown if his killer as escape artist makes his renown? this is no wayward youth beguiled on whom temptation has rarely smiled this is the evil one's favorite child how can we let such a one run wild?"