SIN.
1.
Lo. Peter in Hell’s Grosvenor Square,
A footman in the Devil’s service!
And the misjudging world would swear _265
That every man in service there
To virtue would prefer vice.
2.
But Peter, though now damned, was not
What Peter was before damnation.
Men oftentimes prepare a lot _270
Which ere it finds them, is not what
Suits with their genuine station.
3.
All things that Peter saw and felt
Had a peculiar aspect to him;
And when they came within the belt _275
Of his own nature, seemed to melt,
Like cloud to cloud, into him.
4.
And so the outward world uniting
To that within him, he became
Considerably uninviting _280
To those who, meditation slighting,
Were moulded in a different frame.
5.
And he scorned them, and they scorned him;
And he scorned all they did; and they
Did all that men of their own trim _285
Are wont to do to please their whim,
Drinking, lying, swearing, play.
6.
Such were his fellow-servants; thus
His virtue, like our own, was built
Too much on that indignant fuss _290
Hypocrite Pride stirs up in us
To bully one another’s guilt.
7.
He had a mind which was somehow
At once circumference and centre
Of all he might or feel or know; _295
Nothing went ever out, although
Something did ever enter.
8.
He had as much imagination
As a pint-pot;—he never could
Fancy another situation, _300
From which to dart his contemplation,
Than that wherein he stood.
9.
Yet his was individual mind,
And new created all he saw
In a new manner, and refined _305
Those new creations, and combined
Them, by a master-spirit’s law.