Too ill for this, he lay beside the door,
Compell’d to hear the reasoning of the poor:
He look’d so pale, so weak, the pitying crowd
Their firm belief of his repentance vow’d;
They saw him then so ghastly and so thin,
That they exclaim’d, “Is this the work of sin?”
“Yes,” in his better moments, he replied,
“Of sinful avarice and the spirit’s pride; -
While yet untempted, I was safe and well;
Temptation came; I reason’d, and I fell: