—Ay, and attractive to unwary folk
Who gaze at storied portal, statued spire,
And go home with full head but empty purse
Nor dare suspect the sacristan the thief! (470)
Shall Judas,—hard upon the donor’s heel,
To filch the fragments of the basket,—plead
He was too near the preacher’s mouth, nor sat
Attent with fifties in a company?
No,—closer to promulgated decree,
Clearer the censure of default. Proceed!
Fortified by propitious circumstance,
Great birth, good breeding, with the Church for guide.
How lives he? Cased thus in a coat of proof, (480)
Mailed like a man-at-arms, though all the while
A puny starveling,—does the breast pant big,
The limb swell to the limit, emptiness
Strive to become solidity indeed?
Rather, he shrinks up like the ambiguous fish,
Detaches flesh from shell and outside show,
And steals by moonlight (I have seen the thing)
In and out, now to prey and now to skulk.
Armour he boasts when a wave breaks on beach,
Or bird stoops for the prize: with peril nigh,— (490)
The man of rank, the much-befriended man,
The man almost affiliate to the Church,
Such is to deal with, let the world beware!
Does the world recognise, pass prudently?
Do tides abate and sea-fowl hunt i’ the deep?
Already is the slug from out its mew,
Ignobly faring with all loose and free,
Sand-fly and slush-worm at their garbage- feast,
A naked blotch no better than they all:
Guido has dropped nobility, slipped the Church, (500)
Plays trickster if not cut-purse, body and soul
Prostrate among the filthy feeders—faugh!
And when Law takes him by surprise at last,
Catches the foul thing on its carrion-prey,
Behold, he points to shell left high and dry,
Pleads “But the case out yonder is myself!”
Nay, it is thou, Law prongs amid thy peers,
Congenial vermin; that was none of thee,
Thine outside,—give it to the soldier-crab!
That he believes in just the vile of life.
Low instinct, base pretension, are these truth?
Then, that aforesaid armour, probity
He figures in, is falsehood scale on scale;
Honor and faith,—a lie and a disguise,
Probably for all livers in this world,
Certainly for himself! All say good words
To who will hear, all do thereby bad deeds
To who must undergo; so thrive mankind!
See this habitual creed exemplified (520)
Most in the last deliberate act; as last,
So, very sum and substance of the soul
Of him that planned and leaves one perfect piece,
The sin brought under jurisdiction now,
Even the marriage of the man: this act
I sever from his life as sample, show
For Guido’s self, intend to test him by,
As, from a cup filled fairly at the fount,
By the components we decide enough
Or to let flow as late, or staunch the source. (530)
On no one motive that should prompt thereto—
Farthest, by consequence, from ends alleged
Appropriate to the action; so they were:
The best, he knew and feigned, the worst he took.
Not one permissible impulse moves the man,
From the mere liking of the eye and ear,
To the true longing of the heart that loves,
No trace of these: but all to instigate,
Is what sinks man past level of the brute, (540)
Whose appetite if brutish is a truth.
All is the lust for money: to get gold,—
Why, lie, rob, if it must be, murder! Make
Body and soul wring gold out, lured within
The clutch of hate by love, the trap’s pretence!
What good else get from bodies and from souls?
This got, there were some life to lead thereby,
—What, where or how, appreciate those who tell
How the toad lives: it lives,—enough for me!
To get this good,—with but a groan or so, (550)
Then, silence of the victims,—were the feat.
He foresaw, made a picture in his mind,—
Of father and mother stunned and echoless
To the blow, as they lie staring at fate’s jaws
Their folly danced into, till the woe fell;
Edged in a month by strenuous cruelty
From even the poor nook whence they watched the wolf
Feast on their heart, the lamb-like child his prey;
Plundered to the last remnant of their wealth,
(What daily pittance pleased the plunderer dole) (560)
Hunted forth to go hide head, starve and die,
So leave the pale awe-stricken wife, past hope
Of help i’ the world now, mute and motionless
His slave, his chattel, to use and then destroy:
All this, he bent mind how to bring about,
Put this in act and life, as painted plain,
And have success, the crown of earthly good,
In this particular enterprise of man,
A marriage—undertaken in God’s face
With all those lies so opposite God’s truth, (570)
For ends so other than man’s end.
Guido, and thus would carry out his scheme:
But when an obstacle first blocks the path,
When he finds there is no monopoly
Of lies and trick i’ the tricking lying world,—
That sorry timid natures, even
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