No More Learning

_ You have interrupted me.

_Stran. _ What is that resolution which can e'er 90
Be interrupted? If I be the devil
You deem, a single moment would have made you
Mine, and for ever, by your suicide;
And yet my coming saves you.

_Arn. _ I said not
You _were_ the Demon, but that your approach
Was like one.

_Stran. _ Unless you keep company
With him (and you seem scarce used to such high
Society) you can't tell how he approaches;
And for his aspect, look upon the fountain,
And then on me, and judge which of us twain 100
Looks likest what the boors believe to be
Their cloven-footed terror.

_Arn. _ Do you--dare _you_
To taunt me with my born deformity?

_Stran. _ Were I to taunt a buffalo with this
Cloven foot of thine, or the swift dromedary
With thy Sublime of Humps, the animals
Would revel in the compliment. And yet
Both beings are more swift, more strong, more mighty
In action and endurance than thyself,
And all the fierce and fair of the same kind 110
With thee. Thy form is natural: 'twas only
Nature's mistaken largess to bestow
The gifts which are of others upon man.

_Arn.
_ Give me the strength then of the buffalo's foot,[cw]
When he spurns high the dust, beholding his
Near enemy; or let me have the long
And patient swiftness of the desert-ship,
The helmless dromedary! --and I'll bear[cx]
Thy fiendish sarcasm with a saintly patience.

_Stran. _ I will.

_Arn. _ (_with surprise_). Thou _canst? _

_Stran. _ Perhaps. Would you aught else? 120

_Arn. _ Thou mockest me.

_Stran. _ Not I. Why should I mock
What all are mocking? That's poor sport, methinks.