A summer-rain, quite cloudless, from compassion’s seas.
His conscience smote him sore: “Why weepest thou, man of sense?
Are they of tears fit objects,—men of violence?
What motive for thy tears? Say. Grievest thou for their acts?
Mournest thou th’ extinction of their merciless, vile pacts?320
Or is’t, perchance, their hearts, corrupt, gangrened, thou’dst weep?
On their empoisoned tongues, so adderlike, thou’dst keep?
Those tails and fangs is’t, are the objects of thy grief?
Their scorpion claws and sting that thou regrettest in chief?
Contentiousness, foul mockery, rude violence?