John Peale Bishop. The Hunchback. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Hunchback

By John Peale Bishop


I SAW a hunchback climb over a hill,
Carrying slops for the pigs to swill.

The snow was hard, the air was frore,
And he cast a bluish shadow before.

Over the frozen hill he came,	5
Like one who is neither strong nor lame;

And I saw his face as he passed me by,
And the hateful look of his dead-fish eye:

His face, like the face of a wrinkled child
Who has never laughed or played or smiled.	10

I watched him till his work was done;
And suddenly God went out of the sun,

Went out of the sun without a sound
But the great pigs trampling the frozen ground.

The hunchback turned and retracked the snows;	15
But where God’s gone, there’s no man knows.