FEARS AND [SCRUPLES][°]
Here's my case. Of old I used to love him.
This same unseen friend, before I knew:
Dream there was none like him, none above him,—
Wake to hope and trust my dream was true.
°[5]Loved I not his letters[°] full of beauty?
Not his actions famous far and wide?
Absent, he would know I vowed him duty,
Present, he would find me at his side.
Pleasant fancy! for I had but letters,
10 Only knew of actions by hearsay:
He himself was busied with my betters;
What of that? My turn must come some day.
"Some day" proving—no day! Here's the puzzle.
Passed and passed my turn is. Why complain?
He's so busied! If I could but muzzle
People's foolish mouths that give me pain!
"[Letters]?" (hear them!) "You a judge of writing?
Ask the experts!—How they shake the head
O'er these characters, your friend's inditing—
°[20] Call them forgery from A to Z°!
"Actions? Where's your certain proof" (they bother)[page 81]
"He, of all you find so great and good,
He, he only, claims this, that, the other
Action—claimed by men, a multitude?"
I can simply wish I might refute you,
Wish my friend would,—by a word, a wink,—
Bid me stop that foolish mouth,—you brute you!
He keeps absent,—why, I cannot think.
Never mind! Tho' foolishness may flout me.
30 One thing's sure enough; 'tis neither frost,
No, nor fire, shall freeze or burn from out me
Thanks for truth—tho' falsehood, gained—tho' lost.
All my days, I'll go the softlier, sadlier,
For that dream's sake! How forget the thrill
Thro' and thro' me as I thought, "The gladlier
Lives my friend because I love him still!"
Ah, but there's a menace some one utters!
"What and if your friend at home play tricks?
Peep at hide-and-seek behind the shutters?
40 Mean your eyes should pierce thro' solid bricks?
'What and if he, frowning, wake you, dreamy?
Lay on you the blame that bricks—conceal?
Say 'At least I saw who did not see me,[page 82]
Does see now, and presently shall feel'?"
"Why, that makes your friend a monster!" say you;
"Had his house no window? At first nod,
Would you not have hailed him?" Hush, I pray you!
What if this friend happen to be—God?
INSTANS [TYRANNUS][°]
Of the million or two, more or less,
I rule and possess,
One man, for some cause undefined,
Was least to my mind.
I struck him, he grovelled of course—
For, what was his force?
I pinned him to earth with my weight
And persistence of hate;
And he lay, would not moan, would not curse,
10As his lot might be worse.
"Were the object less mean? would he stand
At the swing of my hand!
For obscurity helps him, and blots[page 83]
The hole where he squats."
So, I set my five wits on the stretch.
To inveigle the wretch.
All in vain! Gold and jewels I threw,
Still he couched there perdue;
I tempted his blood and his flesh,
20Hid in roses my mesh,
Choicest cates and the flagon's best spilth:
Still he kept to his filth.
Had he kith now or kin, were access
To his heart, did I press:
Just a son or a mother to seize!
No such booty as these.
Were it simply a friend to pursue
'Mid my million or two,
Who could pay me, in person or pelf,
30What he owes me himself!
No: I could not but smile thro' my chafe:
For the fellow lay safe
As his mates do, the midge and the nit,
—Thro' minuteness, to wit.
Then a humour more great took its place
At the thought of his face:
The droop, the low cares of the mouth,[page 84]
The trouble uncouth
'Twixt the brows, all that air one is fain
40To put out of its pain,
And, "no!" I admonished myself,
"Is one mocked by an elf.
Is one baffled by toad or by rat?
°[44]The gravamen's[°] in that!
How the lion, who crouches to suit
His back to my foot,
Would admire that I stand in debate!
But the small turns the great
If it vexes you,—that is the thing!
50Toad or rat vex the king?
Tho' I waste half my realm to unearth
Toad or rat, 'tis well worth!"
So, I soberly laid my last plan
To extinguish the man.
Round his creep-hole, with never a break
Ran my fires for his sake;
Overhead, did my thunder combine
With my under-ground mine:
Till I looked from my labour content
60To enjoy the event.
When sudden ... how think ye, the end?[page 85]
Did I say "without friend?"
Say rather, from marge to blue marge
The whole sky grew his targe
With the sun's self for visible boss,
While an Arm ran across
Which the earth heaved beneath like a breast!
Where the wretch was safe prest!
°[69] Do you see! Just my [vengeance] complete,
70The man sprang to his feet,
Stood erect, caught at God's skirts, and prayed!
—So, I was afraid!
THE [PATRIOT][°]
AN OLD STORY
It was roses, roses, all the way,
With myrtle mixed in my path like mad;
The house-roofs seemed to heave and sway,
The church-spires flamed, such flags they had,
A year ago on this very day.
The air broke into a mist with bells,
The old walls rocked with the crowd and cries.
Had I said, "Good folk, mere noise repels— [page 86]
But give me your sun from yonder skies!"
10They had answered "And afterward, what else?"
Alack, it was I who leaped at the sun
To give it my loving friends to keep!
Naught man could do, have I left undone:
And you see my harvest, what I reap
This very day, now a year is run.
There's nobody on the house-tops now—
Just a palsied few at the windows set;
For the best of the sight is, all allow,
At the Shambles' Gate—or, better yet,
20By the very scaffold's foot, I trow.
I go in the rain, and, more than needs,
A rope cuts both my wrists behind;
And I think, by the feel, my forehead bleeds,
For they fling, whoever has a mind,
Stones at me for my year's misdeeds.
Thus I entered, and thus I go!
In triumphs, people have dropped down dead,
"Paid by the world, what dost thou owe
Me? "—God might question; now instead,
30'Tis God shall repay: I am safer so.