VII
195 Words
VIISO, STRANGER, IF YOU should happen to
Drop jets in the City of Krull
By chance you may meet on a quiet street
A man who with movements dull
Roams up and down through the little town
Like someone bewitched by a spell;
And the one at his side, his companion and guide
Is the lady once known as Nell.
For the woman who made of love a trade
And discovered true love too late
Has paid at last for the sins of her past
With Dougal MacNeer as her mate.
Her hair, that was gold, is streaked now with cold
White tendrils, but still she sighs
And she waits and she prays, through long, endless days,
For the light to return to his eyes.
For—Man in his lust for raw gold may thrust
From planet to asteroid,
But the will of the Great Astronomer still
Is the Will of the cosmic void.
And whoever shall plot for another’s lot,
Be he brother or foe or friend,
Who seeks his gain of a fellowman’s pain
Must pay a price in the end.
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[1] KRULL, A MINING town in N. Campbell Terr., Mars. 84 m. SW of Sand City; pop. 3,587.
[2] Cradle-monkey; spaceport attendant.
[3] A. L. & O.—Astrogational Loci and Orbits, the space mariner’s handbook.
- Writer
