More Chapter 9ish stuff from Naipul

[Robin Landseadel]

	I am an old artillerist, I tell of my fort's bombardment,
	I am there again.

	Again the long roll of the drummers,
	Again the attacking cannon, mortars,
	Again to my listening ears the cannon responsive.


On Oct 31, 2010, at 7:26 AM, alice wellintown wrote:

> Chapter Nine reminds me of Frost's Fire & Ice (Sun and Fog) a bit, but
> more of a perverted Romance or colonial romance (Heart of Darkness
> Wasteland; we note how Whitman's empathic subject and object are
> reversed.
>
> The disdain and calmness of martyrs,
> The mother of old, condemn’d for a witch, burnt with dry wood, her
> children gazing on,
> The hounded slave that flags in the race, leans by the fence, blowing,
> cover’d with sweat,
> The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, the murderous
> buckshot and the bullets,
> All these I feel or am.
>
>
> I am the hounded slave, I wince at the bite of the dogs,
> Hell and despair are upon me, crack and again crack the marksmen,
> I clutch the rails of the fence, my gore dribs, thinn’d with the ooze
> of my skin,
> I fall on the weeds and stones,
> The riders spur their unwilling horses, haul close,
> Taunt my dizzy ears and beat me violently over the head with whip- 
> stocks.
>
>
> Agonies are one of my changes of garments,
> I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the
> wounded person,
> My hurts turn livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.