With its portentuous rigour should have made
The memory of his fault, o’erpower’d and lost
In shuddering pity and astonishment,
Fade like a feebler horror. Otherwise
Seem’d good to Heaven. I murmur not, nor doubt
The boundless mercy of redeeming love.
For sure I trust that not in his offence
Harden’d and reprobate was my lost son,
A child of wrath, cut off!... that dreadful thought,
Not even amid the first fresh wretchedness,