It is not that I may not have incurred,
For my ancestral faults or mine, the wound[op]
I bleed withal; and, had it been conferred
With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound;
But now my blood shall not sink in the ground—
To thee I do devote it—Thou shalt take
The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found—
Which if I have not taken for the sake—
But let that pass—I sleep—but Thou shalt yet awake.
CXXXIV.
And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now[oq]
I shrink from what is suffered: let him speak
Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
Or seen my mind's convulsion leave it weak;
But in this page a record will I seek.
Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!
CXXXV.
That curse shall be Forgiveness.—Have I not—
Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven!—
Have I not had to wrestle with my lot?
Have I not suffered things to be forgiven?
Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life's life lied away?
And only not to desperation driven,
Because not altogether of such clay
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.
CXXXVI.[or]
From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy
Have I not seen what human things could do?
From the loud roar of foaming calumny
To the small whisper of the as paltry few—
And subtler venom of the reptile crew,
The Janus glance[510] of whose significant eye,
Learning to lie with silence, would seem true—
And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.