The Pope

Like to Ahasuerus, that shrewd prince,     I will begin, as is, these seven years now,     My daily wont, and read a History     (Written by one whose deft right hand was dust     To the last digit, ages ere my birth)     Of all my predecessors, Popes of Rome:     For though mine ancient early dropped the pen,     Yet others picked it up and wrote it dry,     Since of the making books there is no end.     And so I have the Papacy complete     From Peter first to Alexander last;     Can question each and take instruction so.     Have I to dare, I ask, how dared this Pope?     To suffer? Suchanone, how suffered he?     Being about to judge, as now, I seek     How judged once, well or ill, some other Pope;     Study some signal judgment that subsists     To blaze on, or else blot, the page which seals     The sum up of what gain or loss to God     Came of His one more Vicar in the world.     So, do I find example, rule of life;     So, square and set in order the Next page,     Shall be stretched smooth oer my own funeral cyst.     Eight hundred years exact before the year     I was made Pope, men made Formosus Pope,     Say Sigebert and other chroniclers.     Ere I confirm or quash the Trial here     Of Guido Franceschini and his friends,     Read, how there was a ghastly Trial once     Of a dead man by a live man, and both, Popes:     Thus in the antique penmans very phrase.     Then Stephen, Pope and seventh of the name,     Cried out, in synod as he sat in state,     While choler quivered on his brow and beard,     Come into court, Formosus, thou lost wretch,     That claimedst to be late the Pope as I!     And at the word, the great door of the church     Flew wide, and in they brought Formosus self,     The body of him, dead, even as embalmed     And buried duly in the Vatican     Eight months before, exhumed thus for the nonce.     They set it, that dead body of a Pope,     Clothed in pontific vesture now again,     Upright on Peters chair as if alive.     And Stephen, springing up, cried furiously     Bishop of Porto, wherefore didst presume     To leave that see and take this Roman see,     Exchange the lesser for the greater see,     A thing against the canons of the Church?     Then one (a Deacon who, observing forms,     Was placed by Stephen to repel the charge,     Be advocate and mouthpiece of the corpse)     Spoke as he dared, set stammeringly forth     With white lips and dry tongue, as but a youth,     For frightful was the corpse-face to behold,     How nowise lacked there precedent for this.     But when, for his last precedent of all,     Emboldened by the Spirit, out he blurts     And, Holy Father, didst not thou thyself     Vacate the lesser for the greater see,     Half a year since change Arago for Rome?      Ye have the sins defence now, synod mine!     Shrieks Stephen in a beastly froth of rage:     Judge now betwixt him dead and me alive!     Hath he intruded or do I pretend?     Judge, judge! breaks wavelike one whole foam of wrath.     Whereupon they, being friends and followers,     Said Ay, thou art Christs Vicar, and not he!     A way with what is frightful to behold!     This act was uncanonic and a fault.     Then, swallowed up in rage, Stephen exclaimed     So, guilty! So, remains I punish guilt!     He is unpoped, and all he did I damn:     The Bishop, that ordained him, I degrade:     Depose to laics those he raised to priests:     What they have wrought is mischief nor shall stand,     It is confusion, let it vex no more!     Since I revoke, annul and abrogate     All his decrees in all kinds: they are void!     In token whereof and warning to the world,     Strip me yon miscreant of those robes usurped,     And clothe him with vile serge befitting such!     Then hale the carrion to the market-place;     Let the town-hangman chop from his right hand     Those same three fingers which he blessed withal;     Next cut the head off, once was crowned forsooth:     And last go fling all, fingers, head and trunk,     In Tiber that my Christian fish may sup!     Either because of ????? which means Fish     And very aptly symbolises Christ,     Or else because the Pope is Fisherman     And seals with Fishers-signet. Anyway,     So said, so done: himself, to see it done,     Following the corpse, they trailed from street to street     Till into Tiber wave they threw the thing.     The people, crowded on the banks to see,     Were loud or mute, wept or laughed, cursed or jeered,     According as the deed addressed their sense;     A scandal verily: and out spake a Jew     Wot ye your Christ had vexed our Herod thus?     Now when, Formosus being dead a year,     His judge Pope Stephen tasted death in turn,     Made captive by the mob and strangled straight,     Romanus, his successor for a month,     Did make protest Formosus was with God,     Holy, just, true in thought and word and deed.     Next Theodore, who reigned but twenty days,     Therein convoked a synod, whose decree     Did reinstate, repope the late unpoped,     And do away with Stephen as accursed.     So that when presently certain fisher-folk     (As if the queasy river could not hold     Its swallowed Jonas, but discharged the meal)     Produced the timely product of their nets,     The mutilated man, Formosus, saved     From putrefaction by the embalmers spice,     Or, as some said, by sanctity of flesh,     Why, lay the body again bade Theodore     Among his predecessors, in the church     And burial-place of Peter! which was done.     And addeth Luitprand many of repute,     Pious and still alive, avouch to me     That as they bore the body up the aisle     The saints in imaged row bowed each his head     For welcome to a brother-saint come back.     As for Romanus and this Theodore,     These two Popes, through the brief reign granted each,     Could but initiate what John came to close     And give the final stamp to: he it was,     Ninth of the name, (I follow the best guides)     Who, in full synod at Ravenna held     With Bishops seventy-four, and present too     Eude King of France with his Archbishopry,     Did condemn Stephen, anathematise     The disinterment, and make all blots blank.     For, argueth here Auxilius in a place     De Ordinationibus, precedents     Had been, no lack, before Formosus long,     Of Bishops so transferred from see to see,     Marinus, for example: read the tract.     But, after John, came Sergius, reaffirmed     The right of Stephen, cursed Formosus, nay     Cast out, some say, his corpse a second time.     And here, because the matter went to ground,     Fretted by new griefs, other cares of the age,     Here is the last pronouncing of the Church,     Her sentence that subsists unto this day.     Yet constantly opinion hath prevailed     I the Church, Formosus was a holy man.     Which of the judgments was infallible?     Which of my predecessors spoke for God?     And what availed Formosus that this cursed,     That blessed, and then this other cursed again?     Fear ye not those whose power can kill the body     And not the soul, saith Christ but rather those     Can cast both soul and body into hell!     John judged thus in Eight Hundred Ninety Eight,     Exact eight hundred years ago to-day     When, sitting in his stead, Vice-gerent here,     I must give judgment on my own behoof.     So worked the predecessor: now, my turn!     In Gods name! Once more on this earth of Gods,     While twilight lasts and time wherein to work,     I take His staff with my uncertain hand,     And stay my six and fourscore years, my due     Labour and sorrow, on His judgment-seat,     And forthwith think, speak, act, in place of Him     The Pope for Christ. Once more appeal is made     From mans assize to mine: I sit and see     Another poor weak trembling human wretch     Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right,     Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins     From this world to the next, gives way and way,     Just on the edge over the awful dark:     With nothing to arrest him but my feet.     He catches at me with convulsive face,     Cries Leave to live the natural minute more!     While hollowly the avengers echo Leave?     None! So has he exceeded mans due share     In mans fit licence, wrung by Adams fall,     To sin and yet not surely die, that we,     All of us sinful, all with need of grace,     All chary of our life, the minute more     Or minute less of grace which saves a soul,     Bound to make common cause with who craves time,      We yet protest against the exorbitance     Of sin in this one sinner, and demand     That his poor sole remaining piece of time     Be plucked from out his clutch: put him to death!     Punish him now! As for the weal or woe     Hereafter, God grant mercy! Man be just,     Nor let the felon boast he went scot-free!     And I am bound, the solitary judge,     To weigh the worth, decide upon the plea,     And either hold a hand out, or withdraw     A foot and let the wretch drift to the fall.     Ay, and while thus I dally, dare perchance     Put fancies for a comfort twixt this calm     And yonder passion that I have to bear,     As if reprieve were possible for both     Prisoner and Pope, how easy were reprieve!     A touch o the hand-bell here, a hasty word     To those who wait, and wonder they wait long,     I the passage there, and I should gain the life!     Yea, though I flatter me with fancy thus,     I know it is but natures craven-trick.     The case is over, judgment at an end,     And all things done now and irrevocable:     A mere dead man is Franceschini here,     Even as Formosus centuries ago.     I have worn through this sombre wintry day,     With winter in my soul beyond the worlds,     Over these dismalest of documents     Which drew night down on me ere eve befell,     Pleadings and counter-pleadings, figure of fact     Beside facts self, these summaries to wit,     How certain three were slain by certain five:     I read here why it was, and how it went,     And how the chief o the five preferred excuse,     And how law rather chose defence should lie,     What argument he urged by wary word     When free to play off wile, start subterfuge,     And what the unguarded groan told, tortures feat     When law grew brutal, outbroke, overbore     And glutted hunger on the truth, at last,     No matter for the flesh and blood between.     Alls a clear rede and no more riddle now.     Truth, nowhere, lies yet everywhere in these     Not absolutely in a portion, yet     Evolvable from the whole: evolved at last     Painfully, held tenaciously by me.     Therefore there is not any doubt to clear     When I shall write the brief word presently     And chink the hand-bell, which I pause to do.     Irresolute? Not I more than the mound     With the pine-trees on it yonder! Some surmise,     Perchance, that since mans wit is fallible,     Mine may fail here? Suppose it so, what then?     Say, Guido, I count guilty, theres no babe     So guiltless, for I misconceive the man!     Whats in the chance should move me from my mind?     If, as I walk in a rough country-side,     Peasants of mine cry Thou art he can help,     Lord of the land and counted wise to boot:     Look at our brother, strangling in his foam,     He fell so where we find him, prove thy worth!     I may presume, pronounce, A frenzy-fit,     A falling-sickness or a fever-stroke!     Breathe a vein, copiously let blood at once!     So perishes the patient, and anon     I hear my peasants All was error, lord!     Our story, thy prescription: for there crawled     In due time from our hapless brothers breast     The serpent which had stung him: bleeding slew     Whom a prompt cordial had restored to health.     What other should I say than God so willed:     Mankind is ignorant, a man am I:     Call ignorance my sorrow not my sin!     So and not otherwise, in after-time,     If some acuter wit, fresh probing, sound     This multifarious mass of words and deeds     Deeper, and reach through guilt to innocence,     I shall face Guidos ghost nor blench a jot.     God who set me to judge thee, meted out     So much of judging faculty, no more:     Ask Him if I was slack in use thereof!     I hold a heavier fault imputable     Inasmuch as I changed a chaplain once,     For no cause, no, if I must bare my heart,     Save that he snuffled somewhat saying mass.     For I am ware it is the seed of act,     God holds appraising in His hollow palm,     Not act grown great thence on the world below,     Leafage and branchage, vulgar eyes admire.     Therefore I stand on my integrity,     Nor fear at all: and if I hesitate,     It is because I need to breathe awhile,     Rest, as the human right allows, review,     Intent the little seeds of act, the tree     The thought, to clothe in deed, and give the world     At chink of bell and push of arrased door.     O pale departure, dim disgrace of day!     Winters in wane, his vengeful worst art thou,     To dash the boldness of advancing March!     Thy chill persistent rain has purged our streets     Of gossipry; pert tongue and idle ear     By this, consort neath archway, portico.     But wheresoeer Rome gathers in the grey,     Two names now snap and flash from mouth to mouth     (Sparks, flint and steel strike) Guido and the Pope.     By this same hour to-morrow eve aha,     How do they call him? the sagacious Swede     Who finds by figures how the chances prove,     Why one comes rather than another thing,     As, say, such dots turn up by throw of dice,     Or, if we dip in Virgil here and there     And prick for such a verse, when such shall point.     Take this Swede, tell him, hiding name and rank,     Two men are in our city this dull eve;     One doomed to death, but hundreds in such plight     Slip aside, clean escape by leave of law     Which leans to mercy in this latter time;     Moreover in the plenitude of life     Is he, with strength of limb and brain adroit,     Presumably of service here: beside,     The man is noble, backed by nobler friends:     Nay, for who wish him well, the citys self     Makes common cause with the house-magistrate,     The lord of hearth and home, domestic judge     Who ruled his own and let men cavil. Die?     Hell bribe a gaoler or break prison first!     Nay, a sedition may be helpful, give     Hint to the mob to batter wall, burn gate,     And bid the favourite malefactor march.     Calculate now these chances of escape!     It is not probable, but well may be.     Again, there is another man, weighed now     By twice eight years beyond the seven-times-ten,     Appointed overweight to break our branch.     And this mans loaded branch lifts, more than snow,     All the worlds cark and care, though a birds nest     Were a superfluous burthen: notably     Hath he been pressed, as if his age were youth,     From to-days dawn till now that day departs,     Trying one question with true sweat of soul     Shall the said doomed man fitlier die or live?     When a straw swallowed in his posset, stool     Stumbled on where his path lies, any puff     Thats incident to such a smoking flax,     Hurries the natural end and quenches him!     Now calculate, thou sage, the chances here,     Say, which shall die the sooner, this or that?     That, possibly, this in all likelihood.     I thought so: yet thou trippst, my foreign friend!     No, it will be quite otherwise, to-day     Is Guidos last: my term is yet to run.     But say the Swede were right, and I forthwith     Acknowledge a prompt summons and lie dead:     Why, then I stand already in Gods face     And hear Since by its fruit a tree is judged,     Show me thy fruit, the latest act of thine!     For in the last is summed the first and all,     What thy life last put heart and soul into,     There shall I taste thy product. I must plead     This condemnation of a man to-day.     Not so! Expect nor question nor reply     At what we figure as Gods judgment-bar!     None of this vile way by the barren words     Which, more than any deed, characterise     Man as made subject to a curse: no speech     That still bursts oer some lie which lurks inside,     As the split skin across the coppery snake,     And most denotes man! since, in all beside,     In hate or lust or guile or unbelief,     Out of some core of truth the excrescence comes,     And, in the last resort, the man may urge     So was I made, a weak thing that gave way     To truth, to impulse only strong since true,     And hated, lusted, used guile, forwent faith.     But when man walks the garden of this world     For his own solace, and, unchecked by law,     Speaks or keeps silence as himself sees fit,     Without the least incumbency to lie,     Why, can he tell you what a rose is like,     Or how the birds fly, and not slip to false     Though truth serve better? Man must tell his mate     Of you, me and himself, knowing he lies,     Knowing his fellow knows the same, will think     He lies, it is the method of a man!     And yet will speak for answer It is truth     To him who shall rejoin Again a lie!     Therefore this filthy rags of speech, this coil     Of statement, comment, query and response,     Tatters all too contaminate for use,     Have no renewing: He, the Truth, is, too,     The Word. We men, in our degree, may know     There, simply, instantaneously, as here     After long time and amid many lies,     Whatever we dare think we know indeed     That I am I, as He is He, what else?     But be mans method for mans life at least!     Wherefore, Antonio Pignatelli, thou     My ancient self, who wast no Pope so long     But studied God and man, the many years     I the school, i the cloister, in the diocese     Domestic, legate-rule in foreign lands,     Thou other force in those old busy days     Than this grey ultimate decrepitude,     Yet sensible of fires that more and more     Visit a soul, in passage to the sky,     Left nakeder than when flesh-robe was new     Thou, not Pope but the mere old man o the world,     Supposed inquisitive and dispassionate,     Wilt thou, the one whose speech I somewhat trust,     Question the after-me, this self now Pope,     Hear his procedure, criticise his work?     Wise in its generation is the world.     This is why Guido is found reprobate.     I see him furnished forth for his career,     On starting for the life-chance in our world,     With nearly all we count sufficient help:     Body and mind in balance, a sound frame,     A solid intellect: the wit to seek,     Wisdom to choose, and courage wherewithal     To deal with whatsoever circumstance     Should minister to man, make life succeed.     Oh, and much drawback! what were earth without?     Is this our ultimate stage, or starting-place     To try mans foot, if it will creep or climb,     Mid obstacles in seeming, points that prove     Advantage for who vaults from low to high     And makes the stumbling-block a stepping-stone?     So, Guido, born with appetite, lacks food,     Is poor, who yet could deftly play-off wealth,     Straitened, whose limbs are restless till at large:     And, as he eyes each outlet of the cirque,     The narrow penfold for probation, pines     After the good things just outside the grate,     With less monition, fainter conscience-twitch,     Rarer instinctive qualm at the first feel     Of the unseemly greed and grasp undue,     Than nature furnishes the main mankind,     Making it harder to do wrong than right     The first time, careful lest the common ear     Break measure, miss the outstep of lifes march.     Wherein I see a trial fair and fit     For one else too unfairly fenced about,     Set above sin, beyond his fellows here,     Guarded from the arch-tempter, all must fight,     By a great birth, traditionary name,     Diligent culture, choice companionship,     Above all, conversancy with the faith     Which puts forth for its base of doctrine just     Man is born nowise to content himself     But please God. He accepted such a rule,     Recognised mans obedience; and the Church,     Which simply is such rules embodiment,     He clave to, he held on by, nay, indeed,     Near pushed inside of, deep as layman durst,     Professed so much of priesthood as might sue     For priests-exemption where the layman sinned,     Got his arm frocked which, bare, the law would bruise.     Hence, at this moment, whats his last resource,     His extreme stray and utmost stretch of hope     But that, convicted of such crime as law     Wipes not away save with a worldlings blood,     Guido, the three-parts consecrate, may scape?     Nay, the portentous brothers of the man     Are veritably priests, protected each     May do his murder in the Churchs pale,     Abate Paul, Canon Girolamo!     This is the man proves irreligiousest     Of all mankind, religions parasite!     This may forsooth plead dinned ear, jaded sense,     The vice o the watcher who bides near the bell,     Sleeps sound because the clock is vigilant,     And cares not whether it be shade or shine,     Doling out day and night to all men else!     Why was the choice o the man to niche himself     Perversely neath the tower where Times own tongue     Thus undertakes to sermonise the world?     Why, but because the solemn is safe too,     The belfry proves a fortress of a sort,     Has other uses than to teach the hour,     Turns sunscreen, paravent and ombrifuge     To whoso seeks a shelter in its pale,     Ay, and attractive to unwary folk     Who gaze at storied portal, statued spire,     And go home with full head but empty purse     Nor dare suspect the sacristan the thief!     Shall Judas, hard upon the donors heel,     To filch the fragments of the basket, plead     He was too near the preachers mouth, nor sat     Attent with fifties in a company?     No, closer to promulgated decree,     Clearer the censure of default. Proceed!     I find him bound, then, to begin life well;     Fortified by propitious circumstance,     Great birth, good breeding, with the Church for guide.     How lives he? Cased thus in a coat of proof,     Mailed like a man-at-arms, though all the while     A puny starveling, does the breast pant big,     The limb swell to the limit, emptiness     Strive to become solidity indeed?     Rather, he shrinks up like the ambiguous fish,     Detaches flesh from shell and outside show,     And steals by moonlight (I have seen the thing)     In and out, now to prey and now to skulk.     Armour he boasts when a wave breaks on beach,     Or bird stoops for the prize: with peril nigh,     The man of rank, the much-befriended man,     The man almost affiliate to the Church,     Such is to deal with, let the world beware!     Does the world recognise, pass prudently?     Do tides abate and sea-fowl hunt i the deep?     Already is the slug from out its mew,     Ignobly faring with all loose and free,     Sand-fly and slush-worm at their garbage-feast,     A naked blotch no better than they all:     Guido has dropped nobility, slipped the Church,     Plays trickster if not cut-purse, body and soul     Prostrate among the filthy feeders faugh!     And when Law takes him by surprise at last,     Catches the foul thing on its carrion-prey,     Behold, he points to shell left high and dry,     Pleads But the case out yonder is myself!     Nay, it is thou, Law prongs amid thy peers,     Congenial vermin; that was none of thee,     Thine outside, give it to the soldier-crab!     For I find this black mark impinge the man,     That he believes in just the vile of life.     Low instinct, base pretension, are these truth?     Then, that aforesaid armour, probity     He figures in, is falsehood scale on scale;     Honor and faith, a lie and a disguise,     Probably for all livers in this world,     Certainly for himself! All say good words     To who will hear, all do thereby bad deeds     To who must undergo; so thrive mankind!     See this habitual creed exemplified     Most in the last deliberate act; as last,     So, very sum and substance of the soul     Of him that planned and leaves one perfect piece,     The sin brought under jurisdiction now,     Even the marriage of the man: this act     I sever from his life as sample, show     For Guidos self, intend to test him by,     As, from a cup filled fairly at the fount,     By the components we decide enough     Or to let flow as late, or staunch the source.     He purposes this marriage, I remark,     On no one motive that should prompt thereto     Farthest, by consequence, from ends alleged     Appropriate to the action; so they were:     The best, he knew and feigned, the worst he took.     Not one permissible impulse moves the man,     From the mere liking of the eye and ear,     To the true longing of the heart that loves,     No trace of these: but all to instigate,     Is what sinks man past level of the brute,     Whose appetite if brutish is a truth.     All is the lust for money: to get gold,     Why, lie, rob, if it must be, murder! Make     Body and soul wring gold out, lured within     The clutch of hate by love, the traps pretence!     What good else get from bodies and from souls?     This got, there were some life to lead thereby,     What, where or how, appreciate those who tell     How the toad lives: it lives, enough for me!     To get this good, with but a groan or so,     Then, silence of the victims, were the feat.     He foresaw, made a picture in his mind,     Of father and mother stunned and echoless     To the blow, as they lie staring at fates jaws     Their folly danced into, till the woe fell;     Edged in a month by strenuous cruelty     From even the poor nook whence they watched the wolf     Feast on their heart, the lamb-like child his prey;     Plundered to the last remnant of their wealth,     (What daily pittance pleased the plunderer dole)     Hunted forth to go hide head, starve and die,     So leave the pale awe-stricken wife, past hope     Of help i the world now, mute and motionless     His slave, his chattel, to use and then destroy:     All this, he bent mind how to bring about,     Put this in act and life, as painted plain,     And have success, the crown of earthly good,     In this particular enterprise of man,     A marriage undertaken in Gods face     With all those lies so opposite Gods truth,     For ends so other than mans end.     Thus schemes     Guido, and thus would carry out his scheme:     But when an obstacle first blocks the path,     When he finds there is no monopoly     Of lies and trick i the tricking lying world,     That sorry timid natures, even this sort     O the Comparini, want nor trick nor lie     Proper to the kind, that as the gor-crow treats     The bramble-finch so treats the finch the moth,     And the great Guido is minutely matched     By this same couple whether true or false     The revelation of Pompilias birth,     Which in a moment brings his scheme to nought,     Then, he is piqued, advances yet a stage,     Leaves the low region to the finch and fly,     Soars to the zenith whence the fiercer fowl     May dare the inimitable swoop. I see.     He draws now on the curious crime, the fine     Felicity and flower of wickedness;     Determines, by the utmost exercise     Of violence, made safe and sure by craft,     To satiate malice, pluck one last arch-pang     From the parents, else would triumph out of reach,     By punishing their child, within reach yet,     Who nowise could have wronged, thought, word or deed,     I the matter that now moves him. So plans he,     Always subordinating (note the point!)     Revenge, the manlier sin, to interest     The meaner, would pluck pang forth, but unclench     No gripe in the act, let fall no money-piece.     Hence a plan for so plaguing, body and soul,     His wife, so putting, day by day and hour by hour,     The untried torture to the untouched place,     As must precipitate an end foreseen,     Goad her into some plain revolt, most like     Plunge upon patent suicidal shame,     Death to herself, damnation by rebound     To those whose hearts he, holding hers, holds still:     Such a plan as, in its completeness, shall     Ruin the three together and alike,     Yet leave himself in luck and liberty,     No claim renounced, no right a forfeiture,     His person unendangered, his good fame     Without a flaw, his pristine worth intact,     While they, with all their claims and rights that cling,     Shall forthwith crumble off him every side,     Scorched into dust, a plaything for the winds.     As when, in our Campagna, there is fired     The nest-like work that lets a peasant house;     And, as the thatch burns here, there, everywhere,     Even to the ivy and wild vine, that bound     And blessed the hut where men were happy once,     There rises gradual, black amid the blaze,     Some grim and unscathed nucleus of the nest,     Some old malicious tower, some obscene tomb     They thought a temple in their ignorance,     And clung about and thought to lean upon     There laughs it oer their ravage, where are they?     So did his cruelty burn life about,     And lay the ruin bare in dreadfulness,     Try the persistency of torment so     O the wife, that, at some fierce extremity,     Some crisis brought about by fire and flame,     The patient stung to frenzy should break loose,     Fly anyhow, find refuge anywhere,     Even in the arms of who might front her first,     No monster but a man while nature shrieked     Or thus escape, or die! The spasm arrived,     Not the escape by way of sin, O God,     Who shall pluck sheep Thou holdest, from Thy hand?     Therefore she lay resigned to die, so far     The simple cruelty was foiled. Why then,     Craft to the rescue, craft should supplement     Cruelty and show hell a masterpiece!     Hence this consummate lie, this love-intrigue,     Unmanly simulation of a sin,     With place and time and circumstance to suit     These letters false beyond all forgery     Not just handwriting and mere authorship,     But false to body and soul they figure forth     As though the man had cut out shape and shape     From fancies of that other Aretine,     To paste below incorporate the filth     With cherub faces on a missal-page!     Whereby the man so far attains his end     That strange temptation is permitted, see!     Pompilia, wife, and Caponsacchi, priest,     Are brought together as nor priest nor wife     Should stand, and there is passion in the place,     Power in the air for evil as for good,     Promptings from heaven and hell, as if the stars     Fought in their courses for a fate to be.     Thus stand the wife and priest, a spectacle,     I doubt not, to unseen assemblage there.     No lamp will mark that window for a shrine,     No tablet signalise the terrace, teach     New generations which succeed the old,     The pavement of the street is holy ground;     No bard describe in verse how Christ prevailed     And Satan fell like lightning! Why repine?     What does the world, told truth, but lie the more?     A second time the plot is foiled; nor, now,     By corresponding sin for countercheck,     No wile and trick to baffle trick and wile,     The play of the parents! Here the blot is blanched     By Gods gift of a purity of soul     That will not take pollution, ermine-like     Armed from dishonour by its own soft snow.     Such was this gift of God who showed for once     How He would have the world go white: it seems     As a new attribute were born of each     Champion of truth, the priest and wife I praise,     As a new safeguard sprang up in defence     Of their new noble nature: so a thorn     Comes to the aid of and completes the rose     Courage to-wit, no womans gift nor priests,     I the crisis; might leaps vindicating right.     See how the strong aggressor, bad and bold,     With every vantage, preconcerts surprise,     Flies of a sudden at his victims throat     In a byeway, how fares he when face to face     With Caponsacchi? Who fights, who fears now?     There quails Count Guido, armed to the chattering teeth,     Cowers at the steadfast eye and quiet word     O the Canon at the Pieve! There skulks crime     Behind law called in to back cowardice!     While out of the poor trampled worm the wife,     Springs up a serpent!     But anon of these!     Him I judge now, of him proceed to note,     Failing the first, a second chance befriends     Guido, gives pause ere punishment arrive.     The law he called, comes, hears, adjudicates,     Nor does amiss i the main, secludes the wife     From the husband, respites the oppressed one, grants     Probation to the oppressor, could he know     The mercy of a minutes fiery purge!     The furnace-coals alike of public scorn,     Private remorse, heaped glowing on his head,     What if, the force and guile, the ores alloy,     Eliminate, his baser soul refined     The lost be saved even yet, so as by fire?     Let him, rebuked, go softly all his days     And, when no graver musings claim their due,     Meditate on a mans immense mistake     Who, fashioned to use feet and walk, deigns crawl     Takes the unmanly means ay, though to end     Man scarce should make for, would but reach thro wrong,     May sin, but must not needs shame manhood so:     Since fowlers hawk, shoot, nay and snare the game,     And yet eschew vile practice, nor find sport     In torch-light treachery or the luring owl.     But how hunts Guido? Why, the fraudful trap     Late spurned to ruin by the indignant feet     Of fellows in the chase who loved fair play     Here he picks up the fragments to the least,     Lades him and hies to the old lurking-place     Where haply he may patch again, refit     The mischief, file its blunted teeth anew,     Make sure, next time, a snap shall break the bone.     Craft, greed and violence complot revenge:     Craft, for its quota, schemes to bring about     And seize occasion and be safe withal:     Greed craves its act may work both far and near,     Crush the tree, branch and trunk and root beside,     Whichever twig or leaf arrests a streak     Of possible sunshine else would coin itself,     And drop down one more gold piece in the path.     Violence stipulates Advantage proved,     And safety sure, be pain the overplus!     Murder with jagged knife! Cut but tear too!     Foiled oft, starved long, glut malice for amends!     And, last, craft schemes, scheme sorrowful and strange     As though the elements, whom mercy checked,     Had mustered hate for one eruption more,     One final deluge to surprise the Ark     Cradled and sleeping on its mountain-top:     The outbreak-signal what but the doves coos     Back with the olive in her bill for news     Sorrow was over? Tis an infants birth,     Guidos first born, his son and heir, that gives     The occasion: other men cut free their souls     From care in such a case, fly up in thanks     To God, reach, recognise His love for once:     Guido cries Soul, at last the mire is thine!     Lie there in likeness of a money-bag,     This babes birth so pins down past moving now,     That I dare cut adrift the lives I late     Scrupled to touch lest thou escape with them!     These parents and their child my wife, touch one     Lose all! Their rights determined on a head     I could but hate, not harm, since from each hair     Dangled a hope for me: now chance and change!     No right was in their child but passes now     To that childs child and through such child to me.     I am the father now, come what, come will,     I represent my child; he comes between     Cuts sudden off the sunshine of this life     From those three: why, the gold is in his curls!     Not with old Pietros, Violantes head,     Not his grey horror, her more hideous black     Go these, devoted to the knife!     Tis done:     Wherefore should mind misgive, heart hesitate?     He calls to counsel, fashions certain four     Colourless natures counted clean till now,     Rustic simplicity, uncorrupted youth,     Ignorant virtue! Heres the gold o the prime     When Saturn ruled, shall shock our leaden day     The clown abash the courtier! Mark it, bards!     The courtier tries his hand on clownship here,     Speaks a word, names a crime, appoints a price,     Just breathes on what, suffused with all himself,     Is red-hot henceforth past distinction now     I the common glow of hell. And thus they break     And blaze on us at Rome, Christs Birthnight-eve!     Oh angels that sang erst On the earth, peace!     To man, good will! such peace finds earth to-day!     After the seventeen hundred years, so man     Wills good to man, so Guido makes complete     His murder! what is it I said? cuts loose     Three lives that hitherto he suffered cling,     Simply because each served to nail secure,     By a corner of the money-bag, his soul,     Therefore, lives sacred till the babes first breath     Oerweights them in the balance, off they fly!     So is the murder managed, sin conceived     To the full: and why not crowned with triumph too?     Why must the sin, conceived thus, bring forth death?     I note how, within hairs-breadth of escape,     Impunity and the thing supposed success,     Guido is found when the check comes, the change,     The monitory touch o the tether felt     By few, not marked by many, named by none     At the moment, only recognised aright     I the fulness of the days, for Gods, lest sin     Exceed the service, leap the line: such check     A secret which this life finds hard to keep,     And, often guessed, is never quite revealed.     Guido must needs trip on a stumbling-block     Too vulgar, too absurdly plain i the path!     Study this single oversight of care,     This hebetude that mars sagacity,     Forgetfulness of what the man best knew!     Here is a stranger who, with need to fly,     Needs but to ask and have the means of flight.     Why, the first urchin tells you, to leave Rome,     Get horses, you must show the warrant, just     The banal scrap, clerks scribble, a fair word buys,     Or foul one, if a ducat sweeten word,     And straight authority will back demand,     Give you the pick o the post-house! in such wise,     The resident at Rome for thirty years,     Guido, instructs a stranger! And himself     Forgets just this poor paper scrap, wherewith     Armed, every door he knocks at opens wide     To save him: horsed and manned, with such advance     O the hunt behind, why twere the easy task     Of hours told on the fingers of one hand,     To reach the Tuscan Frontier, laugh at home,     Light-hearted with his fellows of the place,     Prepared by that strange shameful judgment, that     Satire upon a sentence just pronounced     By the Rota and confirmed by the Granduke,     Ready in a circle to receive their peer,     Appreciate his good story how, when Rome,     The Pope-King and the populace of priests     Made common cause with their confederate     The other priestling who seduced his wife,     He, all unaided, wiped out the affront     With decent bloodshed and could face his friends,     Frolic it in the worlds eye. Ay, such tale     Missed such applause, all by such oversight!     So, tired and footsore, those blood-flustered five     Went reeling on the road through dark and cold,     The few permissible miles, to sink at length,     Wallow and sleep in the first wayside straw,     As the other herd quenched, i the wash o the wave,     Each swine, the devil inside him: so slept they,     And so were caught and caged all through one trip,     Touch of the fool in Guido the astute!     He curses the omission, I surmise,     More than the murder. Why, thou fool and blind,     It is the mercy-stroke that stops thy fate,     Hamstrings and holds thee to thy hurt, but how?     On the edge o the precipice! One minute more,     Thou hadst gone farther and fared worse, my son,     Fathoms down on the flint and fire beneath!     Thy comrades each and all were of one mind     Straightway, thy murder done, to murder thee     In turn, because of promised pay withheld.     So, to the last, greed found itself at odds     With craft in thee, and, proving conqueror,     Had sent thee, the same night that crowned thy hope,     Thither where, this same day, I see thee not,     Nor, through Gods mercy, need, to-morrow, see.     Such I find Guido, midmost blotch of black     Discernible in this group of clustered crimes     Huddling together in the cave they call     Their palace, outraged day thus penetrates.     Around him ranged, now close and now remote,     Prominent or obscure to meet the needs     O the mage and master, I detect each shape     Subsidiary i the scene nor loathed the less,     All alike coloured, all descried akin     By one and the same pitchy furnace stirred     At the centre: see, they lick the masters hand,     This fox-faced horrible priest, this brother-brute     The Abate, why, mere wolfishness looks well,     Guido stands honest in the red o the flame,     Beside this yellow that would pass for white,     This Guido, all craft but no violence,     This copier of the mien and gait and garb     Of Peter and Paul, that he may go disguised,     Rob halt and lame, sick folk i the temple-porch!     Armed with religion, fortified by law,     A man of peace, who trims the midnight lamp     And turns the classic page and all for craft,     All to work harm with, yet incur no scratch!     While Guido brings the struggle to a close,     Paul steps back the due distance, clear o the trap     He builds and baits. Guido I catch and judge;     Paul is past reach in this world and my time:     That is a case reserved. Pass to the next,     The boy of the brood, the young Girolamo     Priest, Canon, and what more? nor wolf nor fox,     But hybrid, neither craft nor violence     Wholly, part violence part craft: such cross     Tempts speculation will both blend one day,     And prove hells better product? Or subside     And let the simple quality emerge,     Go on with Satans service the old way?     Meanwhile, what promise, what performance too!     For theres a new distinctive touch, I see,     Lust lacking in the two hells own blue tint     That gives a character and marks the man     More than a match for yellow and red. Once more,     A case reserved: should I doubt? Then comes     The gaunt grey nightmare in the furthest smoke,     The hag that gave these three abortions birth,     Unmotherly mother and unwomanly     Woman, that near turns motherhood to shame,     Womanliness to loathing: no one word,     No gesture to curb cruelty a whit     More than the she-pard thwarts her playsome whelps     Trying their milk-teeth on the soft o the throat     O the first fawn, flung, with those beseeching eyes,     Flat in the covert! How should she but couch,     Lick the dry lips, unsheathe the blunted claw,     Catch twixt her placid eyewinks at what chance     Old bloody half-forgotten dream may flit,     Born when herself was novice to the taste,     The while she lets youth take its pleasure. Last,     These God-abandoned wretched lumps of life,     These four companions, country-folk this time,     Not tainted by the unwholesome civic breath,     Much less the curse o the court! Mere striplings too,     Fit to do human nature justice still!     Surely when impudence in Guidos shape     Shall propose crime and proffer moneys-worth     To these stout tall bright-eyed and black-haired boys,     The blood shall bound in answer to each cheek     Before the indignant outcry break from lip!     Are these i the mood to murder, hardly loosed     From healthy autumn-finish, the ploughed glebe,     Grapes in the barrel, work at happy end,     And winter come with rest and Christmas play?     How greet they Guido with his final task     (As if he but proposed One vineyard more     To dig, ere frost come, then relax indeed!)     Anywhere, anyhow and anywhy,     Murder me some three people, old and young,     Ye never heard the names of, and be paid     So much! And the whole four accede at once.     Demur? As cattle would, bid march or halt!     Is it some lingering habit, old fond faith     I the lord of the land, instructs them, birthright-badge     Of feudal tenure claims its slaves again?     Not so at all, thou noble human heart!     All is done purely for the pay, which, earned,     And not forthcoming at the instant, makes     Religion heresy, and the lord o the land     Fit subject for a murder in his turn.     The patron with cut throat and rifled purse,     Deposited i the roadside-ditch, his due,     Nought hinders each good fellow trudging home,     The heavier by a piece or two in poke,     And so with new zest to the common life,     Mattock and spade, plough-tail and waggon-shaft,     Till some such other piece of luck betide,     Who knows? Since this is a mere start in life,     And none of them exceeds the twentieth year.     Nay, more i the background, yet? Unnoticed forms     Claim to be classed, subordinately vile?     Complacent lookers-on that laugh, perchance     Shake head as their friends horse-play grows too rough     With the mere child he manages amiss     But would not interfere and make bad worse     For twice the fractious tears and prayers: thou knowst     Civility better, Marzi-Medici,     Governor for thy kinsman the Granduke!     Fit representative of law, mans lamp     I the magistrates grasp full-flare, no rushlight-end     Sputtering twixt thumb and finger of the priest!     Whose answer to these Comparinis cry     Is a threat, whose remedy of Pompilias wrong     A shrug o the shoulder, a facetious word     Or wink, traditional with Tuscan wits,     To Guido in the doorway. Laud to law!     The wife is pushed back to the husband, he     Who knows how these home-squabblings persecute     People who have the public good to mind,     And work best with a silence in the court!     Ah, but I save my word at least for thee,     Archbishop, who art under me in the Church,     As I am under God, thou, chosen by both     To do the shepherds office, feed the sheep     How of this lamb that panted at thy foot     While the wolf pressed on her within crooks reach?     Wast thou the hireling that did turn and flee?     With thee at least anon the little word!     Such denizens o the cave now cluster round     And heat the furnace sevenfold: time indeed     A bolt from heaven should cleave roof and clear place,     Transfix and show the world, suspiring flame,     The main offender, scar and brand the rest     Hurrying, each miscreant to his hole: then flood     And purify the scene with outside day     Which yet, in the absolutest drench of dark,     Neer wants a witness, some stray beauty-beam     To the despair of hell.     First of the first,     Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now     Perfect in whiteness stoop thou down, my child,     Give one good moment to the poor old Pope     Heart-sick at having all his world to blame     Let me look at thee in the flesh as erst,     Let me enjoy the old clean linen garb,     Not the new splendid vesture! Armed and crowned,     Would Michael, yonder, be, nor crowned nor armed,     The less pre-eminent angel? Everywhere     I see in the world the intellect of man,     That sword, the energy his subtle spear,     The knowledge which defends him like a shield     Everywhere; but they make not up, I think,     The marvel of a soul like thine, earths flower     She holds up to the softened gaze of God!     It was not given Pompilia to know much,     Speak much, to write a book, to move mankind,     Be memorised by who records my time.     Yet if in purity and patience, if     In faith held fast despite the plucking fiend,     Safe like the signet-stone with the new name     That saints are known by, if in right returned     For wrong, most pardon for worst injury,     If there be any virtue, any praise,     Then will this woman-child have proved who knows?     Just the one prize vouchsafed unworthy me,     Ten years a gardener of the untoward ground,     I till, this earth, my sweat and blood manure     All the long day that barrenly grows dusk:     At least one blossom makes me proud at eve     Born mid the briers of my enclosure! Still     (Oh, here as elsewhere, nothingness of man!)     Those be the plants, imbedded yonder South     To mellow in the morning, those made fat     By the masters eye, that yield such timid leaf,     Uncertain bud, as product of his pains!     While see how this mere chance-sown, cleft-nursed seed,     That sprang up by the wayside neath the foot     Of the enemy, this breaks all into blaze,     Spreads itself, one wide glory of desire     To incorporate the whole great sun it loves     From the inch-height whence it looks and longs! My flower,     My rose, I gather for the breast of God,     This I praise most in thee, where all I praise,     That having been obedient to the end     According to the light allotted, law     Prescribed thy life, still tried, still standing test,     Dutiful to the foolish parents first,     Submissive next to the bad husband, nay,     Tolerant of those meaner miserable     That did his hests, eked out the dole of pain,     Thou, patient thus, couldst rise from law to law,     The old to the new, promoted at one cry     O the trump of God to the new service, not     To longer bear, but henceforth fight, be found     Sublime in new impatience with the foe!     Endure man and obey God: plant firm foot     On neck of man, tread man into the hell     Meet for him, and obey God all the more!     Oh child that didst despise thy life so much     When it seemed only thine to keep or lose,     How the fine ear felt fall the first low word     Value life, and preserve life for My sake!     Thou didst . . . how shall I say? . . . receive so long     The standing ordinance of God on earth,     What wonder if the novel claim had clashed     With old requirement, seemed to supersede     Too much the customary law? But, brave,     Thou at first prompting of what I call God,     And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend,     Accept the obligation laid on thee,     Mother elect, to save the unborn child,     As brute and bird do, reptile and the fly,     Ay and, I nothing doubt, even tree, shrub, plant     And flower o the field, all in a common pact     To worthily defend that trust of trusts,     Life from the Ever Living: didst resist     Anticipate the office that is mine     And with his own sword stay the upraised arm,     The endeavour of the wicked, and defend     Him who, again in my default, was there     For visible providence: one less true than thou     To touch, i the past, less practised in the right,     Approved so far in all docility     To all instruction, how had such an one     Made scruple Is this motion a decree?     It was authentic to the experienced ear     O the good and faithful servant. Go past me     And get thy praise, and be not far to seek     Presently when I follow if I may!     And surely not so very much apart     Need I place thee, my warrior-priest, in whom     What if I gain the other rose, the gold.     We grave to imitate Gods miracle,     Greet monarchs with, good rose in its degree?     Irregular noble scapegrace son the same!     Faulty and peradventure ours the fault     Who still misteach, mislead, throw hook and line     Thinking to land leviathan forsooth,     Tame the scaled neck, play with him as a bird,     And bind him for our maidens! Better bear     The King of Pride go wantoning awhile,     Unplagued by cord in nose and thorn in jaw,     Through deep to deep, followed by all that shine,     Churning the blackness hoary: He who made     The comely terror, He shall make the sword     To match that piece of netherstone his heart,     Ay, nor miss praise thereby; who else shut fire     I the stone, to leap from mouth at swords first stroke,     In lamps of love and faith, the chivalry     That dares the right and disregards alike     The yea and nay o the world? Self-sacrifice,     What if an idol took it? Ask the Church     Why she was wont to turn each Venus here,     Poor Rome perversely lingered round, despite     Instruction, for the sake of purblind love,     Into Madonnas shape, and waste no whit     Of aught so rare on earth as gratitude!     All this sweet savour was not ours but thine,     Nard of the rock, a natural wealth we name     Incense, and treasure up as food for saints,     When flung to us whose function was to give     Not find the costly perfume. Do I smile?     Nay, Caponsacchi, much I find amiss,     Blameworthy, punishable in this freak     Of thine, this youth prolonged though age was ripe,     This masquerade in sober day, with change     Of motley too, now hypocrites-disguise,     Now fools-costume: which lie was least like truth,     Which the ungainlier, more discordant garb     With that symmetric soul inside my son,     The churchmans or the worldlings, let him judge,     Our Adversary who enjoys the task!     I rather chronicle the healthy rage,     When the first moan broke from the martyr-maid     At that uncaging of the beasts, made bare     My athlete on the instant, gave such good     Great undisguised leap over post and pale     Right into the mid-cirque, free fighting-place.     There may have been rash stripping every rag     Went to the winds, infringement manifold     Of laws prescribed pudicity, I fear,     In this impulsive and prompt self-display!     Ever such tax comes of the foolish youth;     Men mulct the wiser manhood, and suspect     No veritable star swims out of cloud:     Bear thou such imputation, undergo     The penalty I nowise dare relax,     Conventional chastisement and rebuke.     But for the outcome, the brave starry birth     Conciliating earth with all that cloud,     Thank heaven as I do! Ay, such championship     Of God at first blush, such prompt cheery thud     Of glove on ground that answers ringingly     The challenge of the false knight, watch we long,     And wait we vainly for its gallant like     From those appointed to the service, sworn     His body-guard with pay and privilege     White-cinct, because in white walks sanctity,     Red-socked, how else proclaim fine scorn of flesh,     Unchariness of blood when blood faith begs?     Where are the men-at-arms with cross on coat?     Aloof, bewraying their attire: whilst thou     In mask and motley, pledged to dance not fight,     Sprangst forth the hero! In thought, word and deed,     How throughout all thy warfare thou wast pure,     I find it easy to believe: and if     At any fateful moment of the strange     Adventure, the strong passion of that strait,     Fear and surprise, may have revealed too much,     As when a thundrous midnight, with black air     That burns, rain-drops that blister, breaks a spell,     Draws out the excessive virtue of some sheathed     Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides     Immensity of sweetness, so, perchance,     Might the surprise and fear release too much     The perfect beauty of the body and soul     Thou savedst in thy passion for Gods sake,     He who is Pity: was the trial sore?     Temptation sharp? Thank God a second time!     Why comes temptation but for man to meet     And master and make crouch beneath his foot,     And so be pedestalled in triumph? Pray     Lead us into no such temptations, Lord!     Yea, but, O Thou whose servants are the bold,     Lead such temptations by the head and hair,     Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight,     That so he may do battle and have praise!     Do I not see the praise? that while thy mates     Bound to deserve i the matter, prove at need     Unprofitable through the very pains     We gave to train them well and start them fair,     Are found too stiff, with standing ranked and ranged,     For onset in good earnest, too obtuse     Of ear, through iteration of command,     For catching quick the sense of the real cry,     Thou, whose sword-hand was used to strike the lute,     Whose sentry-station graced some wantons gate,     Thou didst push forward and show mettle, shame     The laggards, and retrieve the day. Well done!     Be glad thou hast let light into the world,     Through that irregular breach o the boundary, see     The same upon thy path and march assured,     Learning anew the use of soldiership,     Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear,     Loyalty to the lifes end! Ruminate,     Deserve the initiatory spasm, once more     Work, be unhappy but bear life, my son!     And troop you, somewhere twixt the best and worst,     Where crowd the indifferent product, all too poor     Makeshift, starved samples of humanity!     Father and mother, huddle there and hide!     A gracious eye may find you! Foul and fair,     Sadly mixed natures: self-indulgent, yet     Self-sacrificing too: how the love soars,     How the craft, avarice, vanity and spite     Sink again! So they keep the middle course,     Slide into silly crime at unaware,     Slip back upon the stupid virtue, stay     Nowhere enough for being classed, I hope     And fear. Accept the swift and rueful death,     Taught, somewhat sternlier than is wont, what waits     The ambiguous creature, how the one black tuft     Steadies the aim of the arrow just as well     As the wide faultless white on the birds breast.     Nay, you were punished in the very part     That looked most pure of speck, the honest love     Betrayed you, did love seem most worthy pains,     Challenge such purging, as ordained survive     When all the rest of you was done with? Go!     Never again elude the choice of tints!     White shall not neutralise the black, nor good     Compensate bad in man, absolve him so:     Lifes business being just the terrible choice.     So do I see, pronounce on all and some     Grouped for my judgment now, profess no doubt     While I pronounce: dark, difficult enough     The human sphere, yet eyes grow sharp by use,     I find the truth, dispart the shine from shade,     As a mere man may, with no special touch     O the lynx-gift in each ordinary orb:     Nay, if the popular notion class me right,     One of well nigh decayed intelligence,     What of that? Through hard labour and good will,     And habitude that gives a blind man sight     At the practised finger-ends of him, I do     Discern, and dare decree in consequence,     Whatever prove the peril of mistake.     Whence, then, this quite new quick cold thrill, cloud-like,     This keen dread creeping from a quarter scarce     Suspected in the skies I nightly scan?     What slacks the tense nerve, saps the wound-up spring     Of the act that should and shall be, sends the mount     And mass o the whole mans-strength, conglobed so late     Shudderingly into dust, a moments work?     While I stand firm, go fearless, in this world,     For this life recognise and arbitrate,     Touch and let stay, or else remove a thing,     Judge This is right, this object out of place,     Candle in hand that helps me and to spare,     What if a voice deride me, Perk and pry!     Brighten each nook with thine intelligence!     Play the good householder, ply man and maid     With tasks prolonged into the midnight, test     Their work and nowise stint of the due wage     Each worthy worker: but with gyves and whip     Pay thou misprision of a single point     Plain to thy happy self who liftst the light,     Lamentst the darkling, bold to all beneath!     What if thyself adventure, now the place     Is purged so well? Leave pavement and mount roof,     Look round thee for the light of the upper sky,     The fire which lit thy fire which finds default     In Guido Franceschini to his cost!     What if, above in the domain of light,     Thou miss the accustomed signs, remark eclipse?     Shalt thou still gaze on ground nor lift a lid,     Steady in thy superb prerogative,     Thy inch of inkling, nor once face the doubt     I the sphere above thee, darkness to be felt?     Yet my poor spark had for its source, the sun;     Thither I sent the great looks which compel     Light from its fount: all that I do and am     Comes from the truth, or seen or else surmised,     Remembered or divined, as mere man may:     I know just so, nor otherwise. As I know,     I speak, what should I know, then, and how speak     Were there a wild mistake of eye or brain     In the recorded governance above?     If my own breath, only, blew coal alight     I called celestial and the morning-star?     I, who in this world act resolvedly,     Dispose of men, the body and the soul,     As they acknowledge or gainsay this light     I show them, shall I too lack courage? leave     I, too, the post of me, like those I blame?     Refuse, with kindred inconsistency,     Grapple with danger whereby souls grow strong?     I am near the end; but still not at the end;     All till the very end is trial in life:     At this stage is the trial of my soul     Danger to face, or danger to refuse?     Shall I dare try the doubt now, or not dare?     O Thou, as represented here to me     In such conception as my soul allows,     Under Thy measureless my atom width!     Mans mind what is it but a convex glass     Wherein are gathered all the scattered points     Picked out of the immensity of sky,     To reunite there, be our heaven on earth,     Our known unknown, our God revealed to man?     Existent somewhere, somehow, as a whole;     Here, as a whole proportioned to our sense,     There, (which is nowhere, speech must babble thus!)     In the absolute immensity, the whole     Appreciable solely by Thyself,     Here, by the little mind of man, reduced     To littleness that suits his faculty,     Appreciable too in the degree;     Between Thee and ourselves nay even, again,     Below us, to the extreme of the minute,     Appreciable by how many and what diverse     Modes of the life Thou makest be! (why live     Except for love, how love unless they know?)     Each of them, only filling to the edge,     Insect or angel, his just length and breadth,     Due facet of reflection, full, no less,     Angel or insect, as Thou framedst things,     I it is who have been appointed here     To represent Thee, in my turn, on earth,     Just as, if new philosophy know aught,     This one earth, out of all the multitude     Of peopled worlds, as stars are now supposed,     Was chosen, and no sun-star of the swarm,     For stage and scene of Thy transcendent act     Beside which even the creation fades     Into a puny exercise of power.     Choice of the world, choice of the thing I am,     Both emanate alike from the dread play     Of operation outside this our sphere     Where things are classed and counted small or great,     Incomprehensibly the choice is Thine!     I therefore bow my head and take Thy place.     There is, beside the works, a tale of Thee     In the worlds mouth which I find credible:     I love it with my heart: unsatisfied,     I try it with my reason, nor discept     From any point I probe and pronounce sound.     Mind is not matter nor from matter, but     Above, leave matter then, proceed with mind:     Mans be the mind recognised at the height,     Leave the inferior minds and look at man.     Is he the strong, intelligent and good     Up to his own conceivable height? Nowise.     Enough o the low, soar the conceivable height,     Find cause to match the effect in evidence,     Works in the world, not mans, then Gods; leave man:     Conjecture of the worker by the work:     Is there strength there? enough: intelligence?     Ample: but goodness in a like degree?     Not to the human eye in the present state,     This isoscele deficient in the base.     What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God     But just the instance which this tale supplies     Of love without a limit? So is strength,     So is intelligence; then love is so,     Unlimited in its self-sacrifice:     Then is the tale true and God shows complete.     Beyond the tale, I reach into the dark,     Feel what I cannot see, and still faith stands:     I can believe this dread machinery     Of sin and sorrow, would confound me else,     Devised, all pain, at most expenditure     Of pain by Who devised pain, to evolve,     By new machinery in counterpart,     The moral qualities of man how else?     To make him love in turn and be beloved,     Creative and self-sacrificing too,     And thus eventually God-like, (ay,     I have said ye are Gods, shall it be said for nought?)     Enable man to wring, from out all pain,     All pleasure for a common heritage     To all eternity: this may be surmised,     The other is revealed, whether a fact,     Absolute, abstract, independent truth,     Historic, not reduced to suit mans mind,     Or only truth reverberate, changed, made pass     A spectrum into mind, the narrow eye,     The same and not the same, else unconceived     Though quite conceivable to the next grade     Above it in intelligence, as truth     Easy to man were blindness to the beast     By parity of procedure, the same truth     In a new form, but changed in either case:     What matter so the intelligence be filled?     To the child, the sea is angry, for it roars;     Frost bites, else why the tooth-like fret on face?     Man makes acoustics deal with the seas wrath,     Explains the choppy cheek by chymic law,     To both, remains one and the same effect     On drum of ear and root of nose, change cause     Never so thoroughly: so our heart be struck,     What care I, by Gods gloved hand or the bare?     Nor do I much perplex me with aught hard,     Dubious in the transmitting of the tale,     No, nor with certain riddles set to solve.     This life is training and a passage; pass,     Still, we march over some flat obstacle     We made give way before us; solid truth     In front of it, were motion for the world?     The moral sense grows but by exercise.     Tis even as man grew probatively     Initiated in Godship, set to make     A fairer moral world than this he finds,     Guess now what shall be known hereafter. Thus,     O the present problem: as we see and speak,     A faultless creature is destroyed, and sin     Has had its way i the world where God should rule.     Ay, but for this irrelevant circumstance     Of inquisition after blood, we see     Pompilia lost and Guido saved: how long?     For his whole life: how much is that whole life?     We are not babes, but know the minutes worth,     And feel that life is large and the world small,     So, wait till life have passed from out the world.     Neither does this astonish at the end,     That, whereas I can so receive and trust,     Men, made with hearts and souls the same as mine,     Reject and disbelieve, subordinate     The future to the present, sin, nor fear.     This I refer still to the foremost fact,     Life is probation and this earth no goal     But starting-point of man: compel him strive,     Which means, in man, as good as reach the goal,     Why institute that race, his life, at all?     But this does overwhelm me with surprise,     Touch me to terror, not that faith, the pearl,     Should be let lie by fishers wanting food,     Nor, seen and handled by a certain few     Critical and contemptuous, straight consigned     To shore and shingle for the pebble it proves,     But that, when haply found and known and named     By the residue made rich for evermore,     These, ay, these favoured ones, should in a trice     Turn, and with double zest go dredge for whelks,     Mud-worms that make the savoury soup. Enough     O the disbelievers, see the faithful few!     How do the Christians here deport them, keep     Their robes of white unspotted by the world?     What is this Aretine Archbishop, this     Man under me as I am under God,     This champion of the faith, I armed and decked,     Pushed forward, put upon a pinnacle,     To show the enemy his victor, see!     Whats the best fighting when the couple close?     Pompilia cries, Protect me from the fiend!     No, for thy Guido is one heady, strong,     Dangerous to disquiet: let him bide!     He needs some bone to mumble, help amuse     The darkness of his den with: so, the fawn     Which limps up bleeding to my foot and lies,      Come to me, daughter, thus I throw him back!     Have we misjudged here, over-armed the knight,     Given gold and silk where the plain steel serves best,     Enfeebled whom we sought to fortify,     Made an archbishop and undone a saint?     Well then, descend these heights, this pride of life,     Sit in the ashes with the barefoot monk     Who long ago stamped out the worldly sparks.     Fasting and watching, stone cell and wire scourge,     No such indulgence as unknits the strength     These breed the tight nerve and tough cuticle,     Let the worlds praise or blame run rillet-wise     Off the broad back and brawny breast, we know!     He meets the first cold sprinkle of the world     And shudders to the marrow, Save this child?     Oh, my superiors, oh, the Archbishop here!     Who was it dared lay hand upon the ark     His betters saw fall nor put finger forth?     Great ones could help yet help not: why should small?     I break my promise: let her break her heart!     These are the Christians not the wordlings, not     The sceptics, who thus battle for the faith!     If foolish virgins disobey and sleep,     What wonder? But the wise that watch, this time     Sell lamps and buy lutes, exchange oil for wine,     The mystic Spouse betrays the Bridegroom here.     To our last resource, then! Since all flesh is weak,     Bind weaknesses together, we get strength:     The individual weighed, found wanting, try     Some institution, honest artifice     Whereby the units grow compact and firm:     Each props the other, and so stand is made     By our embodied cowards that grow brave.     The Monastery called of Convertites,     Meant to help women because these helped Christ,     A thing existent only while it acts,     Does as designed, else a nonentity,     For what is an idea unrealised?     Pompilia is consigned to these for help.     They do help; they are prompt to testify     To her pure life and saintly dying days.     She dies, and lo, who seemed so poor, proves rich!     What does the body that lives through helpfulness     To women for Christs sake? The kiss turns bite,     The doves note changes to the crows cry: judge!     Seeing that this our Convent claims of right     What goods belong to those we succour, be     The same proved women of dishonest life,     And seeing that this Trial made appear     Pompilia was in such predicament,     The Convent hereupon pretends to said     Succession of Pompilia, issues writ,     And takes possession by the Fiscs advice.     Such is their attestation to the cause     Of Christ, who had one saint at least, they hoped:     But, is a title-deed to filch, a corpse     To slander, and an infant-heir to cheat?     Christ must give up his gains then! They unsay     All the fine speeches, who was saint is whore.     Why, scripture yields no parallel for this!     The soldiers only threw dice for Christs coat;     We want another legend of the Twelve     Disputing if it was Christs coat at all,     Claiming as prize the woof of price for why?     The Master was a thief, purloined the same,     Or paid for it out of the common bag!     Can it be this is end and outcome, all     I take with me to show as stewardships fruit,     The best yield of the latest time, this year     The seventeen-hundredth since God died for man?     Is such effect proportionate to cause?     And still the terror keeps on the increase     When I perceive . . . how can I blink the fact?     That the fault, the obduracy to good,     Lies not with the impracticable stuff     Whence man is made, his very natures fault,     As if it were of ice, the moon may gild     Not melt, or stone, twas meant the sun should warm     Not make bear flowers, nor ice nor stone to blame:     But it can melt, that ice, and bloom, that stone,     Impassible to rule of day and night!     This terrifies me, thus compelled perceive     Whatever love and faith we looked should spring     At advent of the authoritative star,     Which yet lie sluggish, curdled at the source,     These have leapt forth profusely in old time,     These still respond with promptitude to-day,     At challenge of what unacknowledged powers     O the air, what uncommissioned meteors, warmth     By law, and light by rule should supersede?     For see this priest, this Caponsacchi, stung     At the first summons, Help for honours sake,     Play the man, pity the oppressed! no pause,     How does he lay about him in the midst,     Strike any foe, right wrong at any risk,     All blindness, bravery and obedience! blind?     Ay, as a man would be inside the sun,     Delirious with the plenitude of light     Should interfuse him to the finger-ends     Let him rush straight, and how shall he go wrong?     Where are the Christians in their panoply?     The loins we girt about with truth, the breasts     Righteousness plated round, the shield of faith,     The helmet of salvation, and that sword     O the Spirit, even the word of God, where these?     Slunk into corners! Oh, I hear at once     Hubbub of protestation! What, we monks     We friars, of such an order, such a rule,     Have not we fought, bled, left our martyr-mark     At every point along the boundary-line     Twixt true and false, religion and the world,     Where this or the other dogma of our Church     Called for defence? And I, despite myself,     How can I but speak loud what truth speaks low,     Or better than the best, or nothing serves!     What boots deed, I can cap and cover straight     With such another doughtiness to match,     Done at an instinct of the natural man?     Immolate body, sacrifice soul too,     Do not these publicans the same? Outstrip!     Or else stop race, you boast runs neck and neck,     You with the wings, they with the feet, for shame!     Oh, I remark your diligence and zeal!     Five years long, now, rounds faith into my ears,     Help thou, or Christendom is done to death!     Five years since, in the Province of To-kien,     Which is in China as some people know,     Maigrot, my Vicar Apostolic there,     Having a great qualm, issues a decree.     Alack, the converts use as Gods name, not     Tien-chu but plain Tien or else mere Shang-ti,     As Jesuits please to fancy politic,     While, say Dominicans, it calls down fire,     For Tien means heaven, and Shang-ti, supreme prince,     While Tien-chu means the lord of heaven: all cry,     There is no business urgent for despatch     As that thou send a legate, specially     Cardinal Tournon, straight to Pekin, there     To settle and compose the difference!     So have I seen a potentate all fume     For some infringement of his realms just right,     Some menace to a mud-built straw-thatched farm     O the frontier, while inside the mainland lie,     Quite undisputed-for in solitude,     Whole cities plague may waste or famine sap:     What if the sun crumble, the sands encroach,     While he looks on sublimely at his ease?     How does their ruin touch the empires bound?     And is this little all that was to be?     Where is the gloriously-decisive change,     The immeasurable metamorphosis     Of human clay to divine gold, we looked     Should, in some poor sort, justify the price?     Had a mere adept of the Rosy Cross     Spent his life to consummate the Great Work,     Would not we start to see the stuff it touched     Yield not a grain more than the vulgar got     By the old smelting-process years ago?     If this were sad to see in just the sage     Who should profess so much, perform no more,     What is it when suspected in that Power     Who undertook to make and made the world,     Devised and did effect man, body and soul,     Ordained salvation for them both, and yet . . .     Well, is the thing we see, salvation?     I     Put no such dreadful question to myself,     Within whose circle of experience burns     The central truth, Power, Wisdom, Goodness, God:     I must outlive a thing ere know it dead:     When I outlive the faith there is a sun,     When I lie, ashes to the very soul,     Someone, not I, must wail above the heap,     He died in dark whence never morn arose.     While I see day succeed the deepest night     How can I speak but as I know? my speech     Must be, throughout the darkness, It will end:     The light that did burn, will burn! Clouds obscure     But for which obscuration all were bright?     Too hastily concluded! Sun-suffused,     A cloud may soothe the eye made blind by blaze,     Better the very clarity of heaven:     The soft streaks are the beautiful and dear.     What but the weakness in a faith supplies     The incentive to humanity, no strength     Absolute, irresistible, comports?     How can man love but what he yearns to help?     And that which men think weakness within strength,     But angels know for strength and stronger yet     What were it else but the first things made new,     But repetition of the miracle,     The divine instance of self-sacrifice     That never ends and aye begins for man?     So, never I miss footing in the maze,     No, I have light nor fear the dark at all.     But are mankind not real, who pace outside     My petty circle, the world measured me?     And when they stumble even as I stand,     Have I a right to stop ears when they cry,     As they were phantoms, took the clouds for crags,     Tripped and fell, where the march of man might move?     Beside, the cry is other than a ghosts,     When out of the old time there pleads some bard,     Philosopher, or both and whispers not,     But words it boldly. The inward work and worth     Of any mind, what other mind may judge     Save God who only knows the thing He made,     The veritable service He exacts?     It is the outward product men appraise.     Behold, an engine hoists a tower aloft:     I looked that it should move the mountain too!     Or else Had just a turret toppled down,     Success enough! may say the Machinist     Who knows what less or more result might be:     But we, who see that done we cannot do,     A feat beyond mans force, we men must say.     Regard me and that shake I gave the world!     I was born, not so long before Christs birth,     As Christs birth haply did precede thy day,     But many a watch, before the star of dawn:     Therefore I lived, it is thy creed affirms,     Pope Innocent, who art to answer me!     Under conditions, nowise to escape,     Whereby salvation was impossible.     Each impulse to achieve the good and fair,     Each aspiration to the pure and true,     Being without a warrant or an aim,     Was just as sterile a felicity     As if the insect, born to spend his life     Soaring his circles, stopped them to describe     (Painfully motionless in the mid-air)     Some word of weighty counsel for mans sake,     Some Know thyself or Take the golden mean!      Forwent his happy dance and the glad ray,     Died half an hour the sooner and was dust.     I, born to perish like the brutes, or worse,     Why not live brutishly, obey my law?     But I, of body as of soul complete,     A gymnast at the games, philosopher     I the schools, who painted, and made music, all     Glories that met upon the tragic stage     When the Third Poets tread surprised the Two,     Whose lot fell in a land where life was great     And sense went free and beauty lay profuse,     I, untouched by one adverse circumstance,     Adopted virtue as my rule of life,     Waived all reward, and loved for lovings sake,     And, what my heart taught me, I taught the world,     And have been teaching now two thousand years.     Witness my work, plays that should please, forsooth!     They might please, they may displease, they shall teach,     For truths sake, so I said, and did, and do.     Five hundred years ere Paul spoke, Felix heard,     How much of temperance and righteousness,     Judgment to come, did I find reason for,     Corroborate with my strong style that spared     No sin, nor swerved the more from branding brow     Because the sinner was called Zeus and God?     How nearly did I guess at that Paul knew?     How closely come, in what I represent     As duty, to his doctrine yet a blank?     And as that limner not untruly limns     Who draws an object round or square, which square     Or round seems to the unassisted eye,     Though Galileos tube display the same     Oval or oblong, so, who controverts     I rendered rightly what proves wrongly wrought     Beside Pauls picture? Mine was true for me.     I saw that there are, first and above all,     The hidden forces, blind necessities,     Named Nature, but the things self unconceived:     Then follow, how dependent upon these,     We know not, how imposed above ourselves,     We well know, what I name the gods, a power     Various or one; for great and strong and good     Is there, and little, weak and bad there too,     Wisdom and folly: say, these make no God,     What is it else that rules outside mans self?     A fact then, always, to the naked eye,     And, so, the one revealment possible     Of what were unimagined else by man.     Therefore, what gods do, man may criticise,     Applaud, condemn, how should he fear the truth?     But likewise have in awe because of power,     Venerate for the main munificence,     And give the doubtful deed its due excuse     From the acknowledged creature of a day     To the Eternal and Divine. Thus, bold     Yet self-mistrusting, should man bear himself,     Most assured on what now concerns him most     The law of his own life, the path he prints,     Which law is virtue and not vice, I say,     And least inquisitive where least search skills,     I the nature we best give the clouds to keep.     What could I paint beyond a scheme like this     Out of the fragmentary truths where light     Lay fitful in a tenebrific time?     You have the sunrise now, joins truth to truth,     Shoots life and substance into death and void;     Themselves compose the whole we made before:     The forces and necessity grow God,     The beings so contrarious that seemed gods,     Prove just His operation manifold     And multiform, translated, as must be,     Into intelligible shape so far     As suits our sense and sets us free to feel:     What if I let a child think, childhood-long,     That lightning, I would have him spare his eye,     Is a real arrow shot at naked orb?     The man knows more, but shuts his lids the same:     Lightnings cause comprehends nor man nor child     Why then, my scheme, your better knowledge broke,     Presently readjusts itself, the small     Proportioned largelier, parts and whole named new:     So much, no more two thousand years have done!     Pope, dost thou dare pretend to punish me,     For not descrying sunshine at midnight,     Me who crept all-fours, found my way so far     While thou rewardest teachers of the truth,     Who miss the plain way in the blaze of noon,     Though just a word from that strong style of mine,     Grasped honestly in hand as guiding-staff,     Had pricked them a sure path across the bog,     That mire of cowardice and slush of lies     Wherein I find them wallow in wide day?     How should I answer this Euripides?     Paul, tis a legend, answered Seneca,     But that was in the day-spring; noon is now     We have got too familiar with the light.     Shall I wish back once more that thrill of dawn?     When the whole truth-touched man burned up, one fire?     Assured the trial, fiery, fierce, but fleet,     Would, from his little heap of ashes, lend     Wings to the conflagration of the world     Which Christ awaits ere He make all things new     So should the frail become the perfect, rapt     From glory of pain to glory of joy; and so,     Even in the end, the act renouncing earth,     Lands, houses, husbands, wives and children here,     Begin that other act which finds all, lost,     Regained, in this time even, a hundredfold,     And, in the next time, feels the finite love     Blent and embalmed with its eternal life.     So does the sun ghastlily seem to sink     In those north parts, lean all but out of life,     Desist a dread mere breathing-stop, then slow     Reassert day, begin the endless rise.     Was this too easy for our after-stage?     Was such a lighting-up of faith, in life,     Only allowed initiate, set mans step     In the true way by help of the great glow?     A way wherein it is ordained he walk,     Bearing to see the light from heaven still more     And more encroached on by the light of earth,     Tentatives earth puts forth to rival heaven,     Earthly incitements that mankind serve God     For mans sole sake, not Gods and therefore mans,     Till at last, who distinguishes the sun     From a mere Druid fire on a far mount?     More praise to him who with his subtle prism     Shall decompose both beams and name the true.     In such sense, who is last proves first indeed;     For how could saints and martyrs fail see truth     Streak the nights blackness? Who is faithful now,     Untwists heavens pure white from the yellow flare     O the worlds gross torch, without a foil to help     Produce the Christian act, so possible     When in the way stood Neros cross and stake,     So hard now that the world smiles Rightly done!     It is the politic, the thrifty way,     Will clearly make you in the end returns     Beyond our fools sport and improvidence:     We fools go thro the cornfield of this life,     Pluck ears to left and right and swallow raw,      Nay, tread, at pleasure, a sheaf underfoot,     To get the better at some poppy-flower,     Well aware we shall have so much wheat less     In the eventual harvest: you meantime     Waste not a spike, the richlier will you reap!     What then? There will be always garnered meal     Sufficient for our comfortable loaf,     While you enjoy the undiminished prize!     Is it not this ignoble confidence,     Cowardly hardihood, that dulls and damps,     Makes the old heroism impossible?     Unless . . . what whispers me of times to come?     What if it be the mission of that age,     My death will usher into life, to shake     This torpor of assurance from our creed,     Re-introduce the doubt discarded, bring     The formidable danger back, we drove     Long ago to the distance and the dark?     No wild beast now prowls round the infant camp;     We have built wall and sleep in city safe:     But if the earthquake try the towers, that laugh     To think they once saw lions rule outside,     Till man stand out again, pale, resolute,     Prepared to die, that is, alive at last?     As we broke up that old faith of the world,     Have we, next age, to break up this the new     Faith, in the thing, grown faith in the report     Whence need to bravely disbelieve report     Through increased faith in thing reports belie?     Must we deny, do they, these Molinists,     At peril of their body and their soul,     Recognised truths, obedient to some truth     Unrecognised yet, but perceptible?     Correct the portrait by the living face,     Mans God, by Gods God in the mind of man?     Then, for the few that rise to the new height,     The many that must sink to the old depth,     The multitude found fall away! A few,     Een ere the new law speak clear, keep the old,     Preserve the Christian level, call good good     And evil evil (even though razed and blank     The old titles stand), thro custom, habitude,     And all they may mistake for finer sense     O the fact than reason warrants, as before,     They hope perhaps, fear not impossibly.     Surely some one Pompilia in the world     Will say I know the right place by foots feel,     I took it and tread firm there; wherefore change?     But what a multitude will fall, perchance,     Quite through the crumbling truth subjacent late,     Sink to the next discoverable base,     Rest upon human nature, take their stand     On what is fact, the lust and pride of life!     The mass of men, whose very souls even now     Seem to need re-creating, so they slink     Worm-like into the mud light now lays bare,     Whose future we dispose of with shut eyes     They are baptised, grafted, the barren twigs,     Into the living stock of Christ: may bear     One day, till when they lie death-like, not dead,     Those who with all the aid of Christ lie thus,     How, without Christ, whither unaided, sink?     What but to this rehearsed before my eyes?     Do not we end, the century and I?     The impatient antimasque treads close on kibe     O the very masques self it will mock, on me,     Last lingering personage, the impatient mime     Pushes already, will I block the way?     Will my slow trail of garments neer leave space     For pantaloon, sock, plume, and castanet?     Here comes the first experimentalist     In the new order of things, he plays a priest;     Does he take inspiration from the Church,     Directly make her rule his law of life?     Not he: his own mere impulse guides the man     Happily sometimes, since ourselves admit     He had danced, in gaiety of heart, i the main     The right step in the maze we bade him foot.     What if his heart had prompted to break loose     And mar the measure? Why, we must submit     And thank the chance that brought him safely through.     Will he repeat the prodigy? Perhaps.     Can he teach others how to quit themselves,     Prove why this step was right, while that were wrong?     How should he? Ask your hearts as I asked mine,     And get discreetly through the morrice so;     If your hearts misdirect you, quit the stage,     And make amends, be there amends to make.     Such is, for the Augustine that was once,     This Canon Caponsacchi we see now.     And my heart answers to another tune,     Puts in the Abate, second in the suite,     I have my taste too, and tread no such step!     You choose the glorious life, and may, for me,     Who like the lowest of lifes appetites,     What you judge, but the very truth of joy     To my own apprehension which must judge.     Call me knave and you get yourself called fool!     I live for greed, ambition, lust, revenge;     Attain these ends by force, guile: hypocrite,     To-day, perchance to-morrow recognised     The rational man, the type of commonsense.     Theres Loyola adapted to our time!     Under such guidance Guido plays his part,     He also influencing in due turn     These last clods where I track intelligence     By any glimmer, those four at his beck     Ready to murder any, and, at their own,     As ready to murder him, these are the world!     And, first effect of the new cause of things,     There they lie also duly, the old pair     Of the weak head and not so wicked heart,     And the one Christian mother, wife and girl,     Which three gifts seem to make an angel up,     The first foot of the dance is on their heads!     Still, I stand here, not off the stage though close     On the exit: and my last act, as my first,     I owe the scene, and Him who armed me thus     With Pauls sword as with Peters key. I smite     With my whole strength once more, then end my part,     Ending, so far as man may, this offence.     And when I raise my arm, what plucks my sleeve?     Who stops me in the righteous function, foe     Or friend? O, still as ever, friends are they     Who, in the interest of outraged truth     Deprecate such rough handling of a lie!     The facts being proved and incontestable,     What is the last word I must listen to?     Is it Spare yet a term this barren stock,     We pray thee dig about and dung and dress     Till he repent and bring forth fruit even yet?     Is it So poor and swift a punishment     Shall throw him out of life with all that sin?     Let mercy rather pile up pain on pain     Till the flesh expiate what the soul pays else?     Nowise! Remonstrance on all sides begins     Instruct me, theres a new tribunal now     Higher than Gods, the educated mans!     Nice sense of honour in the human breast     Supersedes here the old coarse oracle     Confirming handsomely a point or so     Wherein the predecessor worked aright     By rule of thumb: as when Christ said, when, where?     Enough, I find it in a pleading here,     All other wrongs done, patiently I take:     But touch my honour and the case is changed!     I feel the due resentment, nemini     Honorem trado, is my quick retort.     Right of Him, just as if pronounced to-day!     Still, should the old authority be mute,     Or doubtful, or in speaking clash with new,     The younger takes permission to decide.     At last we have the instinct of the world     Ruling its household without tutelage,     And while the two laws, human and divine,     Have busied finger with this tangled case,     In the brisk junior pushes, cuts the knot,     Pronounces for acquittal. How it trips     Silverly oer the tongue! Remit the death!     Forgive . . . well, in the old way, if thou please,     Decency and the relics of routine     Respected, let the Count go free as air!     Since he may plead a priests immunity,     The minor orders help enough for that,     With Farinaccis licence, who decides     That the mere implication of such man,     So privileged, in any cause, before     Whatever court except the Spiritual,     Straight quashes the procedure, quash it, then!     It proves a pretty loophole of escape     Moreover, that, beside the patent fact     O the laws allowance, theres involved the weal     O the Popedom: a sons privilege at stake,     Thou wilt pretend the Churchs interest,     Ignore all finer reasons to forgive!     But herein lies the proper cogency     (Let thy friends teach thee while thou tellest beads)     That in this case the spirit of culture speaks,     Civilisation is imperative.     To her shall we remand all delicate points     Henceforth, nor take irregular advice     O the sly, as heretofore: she used to hint     Apologies when law was out of sorts     Because a saucy tongue was put to rest,     An eye that roved was cured of arrogance:     But why be forced to mumble under breath     What soon shall be acknowledged the plain fact,     Outspoken, say, in thy successors time?     Methinks we see the golden age return!     Civilisation and the Emperor     Succeed thy Christianity and Pope.     One Emperor then, as one Pope now: meanwhile,     She anticipates a little to tell thee Take     Count Guidos life, and sap society,     Whereof the main prop was, is, and shall prove      Supremacy of husband over wife!     Shall the man rule i the house, or may his mate     Because of any plea dispute the same?     Oh, pleas of all sorts shall abound, be sure,     If once allowed validity, for, harsh     And savage, for, inept and silly-sooth,     For, this and that, will the ingenious sex     Demonstrate the best master eer graced slave:     And theres but one short way to end the coil,     By giving right and reason steadily     To the man and master: then the wife submits.     There it is broadly stated, nor the time     Admits we shift a pillar? nay, a stake     Out of its place i the tenement, one touch     Whereto may send a shudder through the heap     And bring it toppling on our heads perchance.     Moreover, if this breed a qualm in thee,     Give thine own feelings play for once, deal death?     Thou, whose own life winks oer the socket-edge,     Wouldst thou it went out in such ugly snuff     As dooming sons to death, though justice bade?     Why, on a certain feast, Barabbas self     Was set free not to cloud the general cheer.     Neither shalt thou pollute thy Sabbath close!     Mercy is safe and graceful. How one hears     The howl begin, scarce the three little taps     O the silver mallet ended on thy brow,     His last act was to sacrifice a Count     And thereby screen a scandal of the Church!     Guido condemned, the Canon justified     Of course, delinquents of his cloth go free!     And so the Luthers and the Calvins come,     So thy hand helps Molinos to the chair     Whence he may hold forth till dooms day on just     These petit-matre priestlings, in the choir,     Sanctus et Benedictus, with a brush     Of soft guitar-strings that obey the thumb,     Touched by the bedside, for accompaniment!     Does this give umbrage to a husband? Death     To the fool, and to the priest impunity!     But no impunity to any friend     So simply over-loyal as these four     Who made religion of their patrons cause,     Believed in him and did his bidding straight,     Asked not one question but laid down the lives     This Pope took, all four lives together made     Just his own length of days, so, dead they lie,     As these were times when loyaltys a drug,     And zeal in a subordinate too cheap     And common to be saved when we spend life!     Come, tis too much good breath we waste in words:     The pardon, Holy Father! Spare grimace,     Shrugs and reluctance! Are not we the world,     Bid thee, our Priam, let soft culture plead     Hecuba-like, non tali (Virgil serves)     Auxilio, and the rest! Enough, it works!     The Pope relaxes, and the Prince is loth,     The fathers bowels yearn, the mans will bends,     Reply is apt. Our tears on tremble, hearts     Big with a benediction, wait the word     Shall circulate thro the city in a trice,     Set every window flaring, give each man     O the mob his torch to wave for gratitude.     Pronounce it, for our breath and patience fail!     I will, Sirs: for a voice other than yours     Quickens my spirit. Quis pro Domino?     Who is upon the Lords side? asked the Count.     I, who write     On receipt of this command,     Acquaint Count Guido and his fellows four     They die to-morrow: could it be to-night,     The better, but the work to do, takes time.     Set with all diligence a scaffold up,     Not in the customary place, by Bridge     Saint Angelo, where die the common sort;     But since the man is noble, and his peers     By predilection haunt the Peoples Square,     There let him be beheaded in the midst,     And his companions hanged on either side:     So shall the quality see, fear, and learn.     All which work takes time: till to-morrow, then,     Let there be prayer incessant for the five!     For the main criminal I have no hope     Except in such a suddenness of fate.     I stood at Naples once, a night so dark     I could have scarce conjectured there was earth     Anywhere, sky or sea or world at all:     But the nights black was burst through by a blaze     Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,     Through her whole length of mountain visible:     There lay the city thick and plain with spires,     And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.     So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,     And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.     Else I avert my face, nor follow him     Into that sad obscure sequestered state     Where God unmakes but to remake the soul     He else made first in vain; which must not be.     Enough, for I may die this very night     And how should I dare die, this man let live?     Carry this forthwith to the Governor!