From leaving you and going back to him
And doing service in Arezzo. Come, (1900)
Instruct me in procedure! I conceive—
In all due self-abasement might I speak—
How you will deal with Guido: oh, not death!
Death, if it let her life be: otherwise
Not death,—your lights will teach you clearer! I
Certainly have an instinct of my own
I’ the matter: bear with me and weigh its worth!
Let us go away—leave Guido all alone
Back on the world again that knows him now!
I think he will be found (indulge so far!) (1910)
Not to die so much as slide out of life,
Pushed by the general horror and common hate
Low, lower,—left o’ the very ledge of things,
I seem to see him catch convulsively
One by one at all honest forms of life,
At reason, order, decency, and use—
To cramp him and get foothold by at least;
And still they disengage them from his clutch.
“What, you are he, then, had Pompilia once
“And so forwent her? Take not up with us!” (1920)
And thus I see him slowly and surely edged
Off all the table-land whence life upsprings
Aspiring to be immortality,
As the snake, hatched on hill-top by mischance,
Despite his wriggling, slips, slides, slidders down
Hill-side, lies low and prostrate on the smooth
Level of the outer place, lapsed in the vale:
So I lose Guido in the loneliness,
Silence and dusk, till at the doleful end,
At the horizontal line, creation’s verge, (1930)
From what just is to absolute nothingness—
Lo, what is this he meets, strains onward still?
What other man deep further in the fate,
Who, turning at the prize of a footfall
To flatter him and promise fellowship,
Discovers in the act a frightful face—
Judas, made monstrous by much solitude!
The two are at one now! Let them love their love
That bites and claws like hate, or hate their hate
That mops and mows and makes as it were love! (1940)
There, let them each tear each in devil’s-fun,
Or fondle this the other while malice aches—
Both teach, both learn detestability!
Kiss him the kiss, Iscariot! Pay that back,
That snatch o’ the slaver blistering on your lip—
By the better trick, the insult he spared Christ—
Lure him the lure o’ the letters, Aretine!
Lick him o’er slimy-smooth with jelly-filth
O’ the verse-and-prose pollution in love’s guise!
The cockatrice is with the basilisk! (1950)
There let them grapple, denizens o’ the dark,
Foes or friends, but indissolubly bound,
In their one spot out of the ken of God
Or care of man, for ever and ever more!
Futility, divagation: this from me
Bound to be rational, justify an act
Of sober man!—whereas, being moved so much,
I give you cause to doubt the lady’s mind:
A pretty sarcasm for the world! I fear (1960)
You do her wit injustice,—all through me!
Like my fate all through,—ineffective help!
A poor rash advocate I prove myself.
You might be angry with good cause: but sure
At the advocate,—only at the undue zeal
That spoils the force of his own plea, I think?
My part was just to tell you how things stand,
State facts and not be flustered at their fume.
But then ’tis a priest speaks: as for love,—no!
If you let buzz a vulgar fly like that (1970)
About your brains, as if I loved, forsooth,
Indeed, Sirs, you do wrong! We had no thought
Of such infatuation, she and I:
There are many points that prove it: do be just!
I told you,—at one little roadside-place
I spent a good half-hour, paced to and fro
The garden; just to leave her free awhile,
I plucked a handful of Spring herb and bloom:
I might have sat beside her on the bench
Where the children were: I wish the thing had been, (1980)
Indeed: the event could not be worse, you know:
One more half-hour of her saved! She’s dead now, Sirs!
While I was running on at such a rate,
Friends should have plucked me by the sleeve: I went
Too much o’ the trivial outside of her face
And the purity that shone there—plain to me,
Not to you, what more natural? Nor am I
Infatuated,—oh, I saw, be sure!
Her brow had not the right line, leaned too much,
Painters would say; they like the straight-up Greek: (1990)
This seemed bent somewhat with an invisible crown
Of martyr and saint, not such as art approves.
And how the dark orbs dwelt deep underneath,
Looked out of such a sad sweet heaven on me—
The lips, compressed a little, came forward too,
Careful for a whole world of sin and pain.
That was the face, her husband makes his plea,
He sought just to disfigure,—no offence
Beyond that! Sirs, let us be rational!
He needs must vindicate his honour,—ay, (2000)
Yet shirks, the coward, in a clown’s disguise,
Away from the scene, endeavours to escape.
Now, had he done so, slain and left no trace
O’ the slayer,—what were vindicated, pray?
You had found his wife disfigured or a corpse,
For what and by whom? It is too palpable!
Then, here’s another point involving law:
I use this argument to show you meant
No calumny against us by that title
O’ the sentence,—liars try to twist it so: (2010)
What penalty it bore, I had to pay
Till further proof should follow of innocence—
Probationis ob defectum,—proof?
How could you get proof without trying us?
You went through the preliminary form,
Stopped there, contrived this sentence to amuse
The adversary. If the title ran
For more than fault imputed and not proved,
That was a simple penman’s error, else
A slip i’ the phrase,—as when we say of you (2020)
“Charged with
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