My foes that jeer, who echo “inadequate”—
For, by a chance that comes to help for once,
The same case simultaneously was judged
At Arezzo, in the province of the Court
Where the crime had beginning but not end.
They then, deciding on but half o’ the crime,
The effraction, robbery,—features of the fault
I never cared to dwell upon at Rome,—
What was it they adjudged as penalty
To Pompilia,—the one criminal o’ the pair (1910)
Amenable to their judgment, not the priest
Who is Rome’s? Why, just imprisonment for life
I’ the Stinche. There was Tuscany’s award
To a wife that robs her husband: you at Rome
Having to deal with adultery in a wife
And, in a priest, breach of the priestly vow,
Give gentle sequestration for a month
In a manageable Convent, then release,
You call imprisonment, in the very house
O’ the very couple, the sole aim and end (1920)
Of the culprits’ crime was—there to reach and rest
And there take solace and defy me: well,—
This difference ’twixt their penalty and yours
Is immaterial: make your penalty less—
Merely that she should henceforth wear black gloves
And white fan, she who wore the opposite—
Why, all the same the fact o’ the thing subsists.
Reconcile to your conscience as you may,
Be it on your own heads, you pronounced one half
O’ the penalty for heinousness like hers (1930)
And his, that’s for a fault at Carnival
Of comfit-pelting past discretion’s law,
Or accident to handkerchief in Lent
Which falls perversely as a lady kneels
Abruptly, and but half conceals her neck!
I acquiesce for my part,—punished, though
By a pin-point scratch, means guilty: guilty means
—What have I been but innocent hitherto?
Anyhow, here the offence, being punished, ends.
That was throughout the veritable aim
O’ the sentence light or heavy,—to redress
Recognised wrong? You righted me, I think?
Well then,—what if I, at this last of all,
Demonstrate you, as my whole pleading proves,
No particle of wrong received thereby
One atom of right?—that cure grew worse disease?
That in the process you call “justice done”
All along you have nipped away just inch
By inch the creeping climbing length of plague (1950)
Breaking my tree of life from root to branch,
And left me, after all and every act
Of your interference,—lightened of what load?
At liberty wherein? Mere words and wind!
“Now I was saved, now I should feel no more
“The hot breath, find a respite from fixed eye
“And vibrant tongue!” Why, scarce your back was turned,
There was the reptile, that feigned death at first,
Renewing its detested spire and spire
Around me, rising to such heights of hate (1960)
That, so far from mere purpose now to crush
And coil itself on the remains of me,
Body and mind, and there flesh fang content.
Its aim is now to evoke life from death,
Make me anew, satisfy in my son
The hunger I may feed but never sate,
Tormented on to perpetuity,—
My son, whom, dead, I shall know, understand,
Feel, hear, see, never more escape the sight
In heaven that’s turned to hell, or hell returned (1970)
(So, rather, say) to this same earth again,—
Moulded into the image and made one,
Fashioned of soul as featured like in face,
First taught to laugh and lisp and stand and go
By that thief, poisoner, and adulteress
I call Pompilia, he calls … sacred name,
Be unpronounced, be unpolluted here!
And last led up to the glory and prize of hate
By his … foster-father, Caponsacchi’s self,
The perjured priest, pink of conspirators, (1980)
Tricksters and knaves, yet polished, superfine,
Manhood to model adolescence by …
Lords, look on me, declare,—when, what I show,
Is nothing more nor less than what you deemed
And doled me out for justice,—what did you say?
For reparation, restitution and more,—
Will you not thank, praise, bid me to your breasts
For having done the thing you thought to do,
And thoroughly trampled out sin’s life at last?
I have heightened phrase to make your soft speech serve,
Doubled the blow you but essayed to strike, (1991)
Carried into effect your mandate here
That else had fallen to ground: mere duty done,
Oversight of the master just supplied
By zeal i’ the servant: I, being used to serve,
Have simply … what is it they charge me with?
Blackened again, made legible once more
Your own decree, not permanently writ,
Rightly conceived but all too faintly traced,—
It reads efficient, now, comminatory, (2000)
A terror to the wicked, answers so
The mood o’ the magistrate, the mind of law.
Absolve, then, me, law’s mere executant!
Protect your own defender,—save me, Sirs!
Give me my life, give me my liberty,
My good name and my civic rights again!
It would be too fond, too complacent play
Into the hands o’ the devil, should we lose
The game here, I for God: a soldier-bee
That yields his life, exenterate with the stroke (2010)
O’ the sting that saves the hive. I need that life,
Oh, never fear! I’ll find life plenty use
Though it should last five years more, aches and all!
For, first thing, there’s the mother’s age to help—
Let her come break her heart upon my breast,
Not on the blank stone of my nameless tomb!
The fugitive brother has to be bidden back
To the old routine, repugnant to the tread,
Of daily suit and service to the Church,—
Thro’
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