Sometimes there comes a crack in Time itself. Sometimes the earth is torn by something blind. Sometimes an image that has stood so long It seems implanted as the polar star Is moved against an unfathomed force That suddenly will not have it any more. Call it the mores , call it God or Fate, Call it Mansoul or economic law, That force exists and moves. And when it moves It will employ a hard and actual stone To batter into bits an actual wall And change the actual scheme of things. John Brown Was such a stone⁠—unreasoning as the stone, Destructive as the stone, and, if you like, Heroic and devoted as such a stone. He had no gift for life, no gift to bring Life but his body and a cutting edge, But he knew how to die. And yardstick law Gave him six weeks to burn that hoarded knowledge