Sword Blades and Poppy Seed | Page 4

hid from me.?Above the chimney's yawning throat,?Shoulder high, like the dark wainscote,?Was a mantelshelf of polished oak?Blackened with the pungent smoke?Of firelit nights; a Cromwell clock?Of tarnished brass stood like a rock?In the midst of a heaving, turbulent sea?Of every sort of cutlery.?There lay knives sharpened to any use,?The keenest lancet, and the obtuse?And blunted pruning bill-hook; blades?Of razors, scalpels, shears; cascades?Of penknives, with handles of mother-of-pearl,?And scythes, and sickles, and scissors; a whirl?Of points and edges, and underneath?Shot the gleam of a saw with bristling teeth.?My head grew dizzy, I seemed to hear?A battle-cry from somewhere near,?The clash of arms, and the squeal of balls,?And the echoless thud when a dead man falls.?A smoky cloud had veiled the room,?Shot through with lurid glares; the gloom?Pounded with shouts and dying groans,?With the drip of blood on cold, hard stones.?Sabres and lances in streaks of light?Gleamed through the smoke, and at my right?A creese, like a licking serpent's tongue,?Glittered an instant, while it stung.?Streams, and points, and lines of fire!?The livid steel, which man's desire?Had forged and welded, burned white and cold.?Every blade which man could mould,?Which could cut, or slash, or cleave, or rip,?Or pierce, or thrust, or carve, or strip,?Or gash, or chop, or puncture, or tear,?Or slice, or hack, they all were there.?Nerveless and shaking, round and round,?I stared at the walls and at the ground,?Till the room spun like a whipping top,?And a stern voice in my ear said, "Stop!?I sell no tools for murderers here.?Of what are you thinking! Please clear?Your mind of such imaginings.?Sit down. I will tell you of these things."
He pushed me into a great chair?Of russet leather, poked a flare?Of tumbling flame, with the old long sword,?Up the chimney; but said no word.?Slowly he walked to a distant shelf,?And brought back a crock of finest delf.?He rested a moment a blue-veined hand?Upon the cover, then cut a band?Of paper, pasted neatly round,?Opened and poured. A sliding sound?Came from beneath his old white hands,?And I saw a little heap of sands,?Black and smooth. What could they be:?"Pepper," I thought. He looked at me.?"What you see is poppy seed.?Lethean dreams for those in need."?He took up the grains with a gentle hand?And sifted them slowly like hour-glass sand.?On his old white finger the almandine?Shot out its rays, incarnadine.?"Visions for those too tired to sleep.?These seeds cast a film over eyes which weep.?No single soul in the world could dwell,?Without these poppy-seeds I sell."?For a moment he played with the shining stuff,?Passing it through his fingers. Enough?At last, he poured it back into?The china jar of Holland blue,?Which he carefully carried to its place.?Then, with a smile on his aged face,?He drew up a chair to the open space?'Twixt table and chimney. "Without preface,?Young man, I will say that what you see?Is not the puzzle you take it to be."?"But surely, Sir, there is something strange?In a shop with goods at so wide a range?Each from the other, as swords and seeds.?Your neighbours must have greatly differing needs."?"My neighbours," he said, and he stroked his chin,?"Live everywhere from here to Pekin.?But you are wrong, my sort of goods?Is but one thing in all its moods."?He took a shagreen letter case?From his pocket, and with charming grace?Offered me a printed card.?I read the legend, "Ephraim Bard.?Dealer in Words." And that was all.?I stared at the letters, whimsical?Indeed, or was it merely a jest.?He answered my unasked request:?"All books are either dreams or swords,?You can cut, or you can drug, with words.?My firm is a very ancient house,?The entries on my books would rouse?Your wonder, perhaps incredulity.?I inherited from an ancestry?Stretching remotely back and far,?This business, and my clients are?As were those of my grandfather's days,?Writers of books, and poems, and plays.?My swords are tempered for every speech,?For fencing wit, or to carve a breach?Through old abuses the world condones.?In another room are my grindstones and hones,?For whetting razors and putting a point?On daggers, sometimes I even anoint?The blades with a subtle poison, so?A twofold result may follow the blow.?These are purchased by men who feel?The need of stabbing society's heel,?Which egotism has brought them to think?Is set on their necks. I have foils to pink?An adversary to quaint reply,?And I have customers who buy?Scalpels with which to dissect the brains?And hearts of men. Ultramundanes?Even demand some finer kinds?To open their own souls and minds.?But the other half of my business deals?With visions and fancies. Under seals,?Sorted, and placed in vessels here,?I keep the seeds of an atmosphere.?Each jar contains a different kind?Of poppy seed. From farthest Ind?Come the purple flowers, opium filled,?From which the weirdest myths are distilled;?My orient porcelains contain them all.?Those Lowestoft pitchers against the wall?Hold a lighter kind of bright conceit;?And those old Saxe vases, out of the heat?On that lowest shelf beside