And glutted hunger on the truth, at last,—
No matter for the flesh and blood between.
All’s a clear rede and no more riddle now.
Truth, nowhere, lies yet everywhere in these—
Not absolutely in a portion, yet
Evolvable from the whole: evolved at last (230)
Painfully, held tenaciously by me.
Therefore there is not any doubt to clear
When I shall write the brief word presently
And chink the hand-bell, which I pause to do.
Irresolute? Not I more than the mound
With the pine-trees on it yonder! Some surmise,
Perchance, that since man’s wit is fallible,
Mine may fail here? Suppose it so,—what then?
Say,—Guido, I count guilty, there’s no babe
So guiltless, for I misconceive the man! (240)
What’s in the chance should move me from my mind?
If, as I walk in a rough country-side,
Peasants of mine cry “Thou art he can help,
“Lord of the land and counted wise to boot:
“Look at our brother, strangling in his foam,
“He fell so where we find him,—prove thy worth!”
I may presume, pronounce, “A frenzy-fit,
“A falling-sickness or a fever-stroke!
Breathe a vein, copiously let blood at once!”
So perishes the patient, and anon (250)
I hear my peasants—“All was error, lord!
“Our story, thy prescription: for there crawled
“In due time from our hapless brother’s breast
“The serpent which had stung him: bleeding slew
“Whom a prompt cordial had restored to health.”
What other should I say than “God so willed:
“Mankind is ignorant, a man am I:
“Call ignorance my sorrow not my sin!”
So and not otherwise, in after-time,
If some acuter wit, fresh probing, sound (260)
This multifarious mass of words and deeds
Deeper, and reach through guilt to innocence,
I shall face Guido’s ghost nor blench a jot.
“God who set me to judge thee, meted out
“So much of judging faculty, no more:
“Ask Him if I was slack in use thereof!”
I hold a heavier fault imputable
Inasmuch as I changed a chaplain once,
For no cause,—no, if I must bare my heart,—
Save that he snuffled somewhat saying mass. (270)
For I am ware it is the seed of act,
God holds appraising in His hollow palm,
Not act grown great thence on the world below,
Leafage and branchage, vulgar eyes admire.
Therefore I stand on my integrity,
Nor fear at all: and if I hesitate,
It is because I need to breathe awhile,
Rest, as the human right allows, review,
Intent the little seeds of act, the tree—
The thought, to clothe in deed, and give the world (280)
At chink of bell and push of arrased door.
Winter’s in wane, his vengeful worst art thou,
To dash the boldness of advancing March!
Thy chill persistent rain has purged our streets
Of gossipry; pert tongue and idle ear
By this, consort ’neath archway, portico.
But wheresoe’er Rome gathers in the grey,
Two names now snap and flash from mouth to mouth—
(Sparks, flint and steel strike) Guido and the Pope. (290)
By this same hour to-morrow eve—aha,
How do they call him?—the sagacious Swede
Who finds by figures how the chances prove,
Why one comes rather than another thing,
As, say, such dots turn up by throw of dice,
Or, if we dip in Virgil here and there
And prick for such a verse, when such shall point.
Take this Swede, tell him, hiding name and rank,
Two men are in our city this dull eve;
One doomed to death,—but hundreds in such plight (300)
Slip aside, clean escape by leave of law
Which leans to mercy in this latter time;
Moreover in the plenitude of life
Is he, with strength of limb and brain adroit,
Presumably of service here: beside,
The man is noble, backed by nobler friends:
Nay, for who wish him well, the city’s self
Makes common cause with the house-magistrate,
The lord of hearth and home, domestic judge
Who ruled his own and let men cavil. Die? (310)
He’ll bribe a gaoler or break prison first!
Nay, a sedition may be helpful, give
Hint to the mob to batter wall, burn gate,
And bid the favourite malefactor march.
Calculate now these chances of escape!
“It is not probable, but well may be.”
Again, there is another man, weighed now
By twice eight years beyond the seven-times-ten,
Appointed overweight to break our branch.
And this man’s loaded branch lifts, more than snow, (320)
All the world’s cark and care, though a bird’s nest
Were a superfluous burthen: notably
Hath he been pressed, as if his age were youth,
From to-day’s dawn till now that day departs,
Trying one question with true sweat of soul
“Shall the said doomed man fitlier die or live?”
When a straw swallowed in his posset, stool
Stumbled on where his path lies, any puff
That’s incident to such a smoking flax,
Hurries the natural end and quenches him! (330)
Now calculate, thou sage, the chances here,
Say, which shall die the sooner, this or that?
“That, possibly, this in all likelihood.”
I thought so: yet thou tripp’st, my foreign friend!
No, it will be quite otherwise,—to-day
Is Guido’s last: my term is yet to run.
Acknowledge a prompt summons and lie dead:
Why, then I stand already in God’s face
And hear “Since by its fruit a tree is judged, (340)
“Show me thy fruit, the
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