Crowned sorrow better than the wild web late:
No more soiled dress, ’tis trimness triumphs now,
For how should malice go with negligence? (1350)
The frayed silk looked the fresher for her spite!
There was an end to springing out of bed,
Praying me, with face buried on my feet,
Be hindered of my pastime,—so an end
To my rejoinder, “What, on the ground at last?
“Vanquished in fight, a supplicant for life?
“What if I raise you? ’Ware the casting down
“When next you fight me!” Then, she lay there, mine:
Now, mine she is if I please wring her neck,—
A moment of disquiet, working eyes, (1360)
Protruding tongue, a long sigh, then no more—
As if one killed the horse one could not ride!
Had I enjoined “Cut off the hair!”—why, snap
The scissors, and at once a yard or so
Had fluttered in black serpents to the floor:
But till I did enjoin it, how she combs,
Uncurls and draws out to the complete length,
Plaits, places the insulting rope on head
To be an eyesore past dishevelment!
Is all done? Then sit still again and stare! (1370)
I advise—no one think to bear that look
Of steady wrong, endured as steadily,
—Through what sustainment of deluding hope?
Who is the friend i’ the background that notes all?
Who may come presently and close accounts?
This self-possession to the uttermost,
How does it differ in aught, save degree,
From the terrible patience of God?
“She did not love you!” Again the word is launched (1380)
And the fact fronts me! What, you try the wards
With the true key and the dead lock flies ope?
No, it sticks fast and leaves you fumbling still!
You have some fifty servants, Cardinal,—
Which of them loves you? Which subordinate
But makes parade of such officiousness
That,—if there’s no love prompts it,—love, the sham,
Does twice the service done by love, the true.
God bless us liars, where’s one touch of truth
In what we tell the world, or world tells us, (1390)
Oh how we like each other? All the same,
We calculate on word and deed, nor err,—
Bid such a man do such a loving act,
Sure of effect and negligent of cause,
Just as we bid a horse, with cluck of tongue,
Stretch his legs arch-wise, crouch his saddled back
To foot-reach of the stirrup—all for love,
And some for memory of the smart of switch
On the inside of the foreleg—what care we?
Yet where’s the bond obliges horse to man (1400)
Like that which binds fast wife to husband? God
Laid down the law: gave man the brawny arm
And ball of fist—woman the beardless cheek
And proper place to suffer in the side:
Since it is he can strike, let her obey!
Can she feel no love? Let her show the more,
Sham the worse, damn herself praiseworthily!
Who’s that soprano Rome went mad about
Last week while I lay rotting in my straw?
The very jailor gossiped in his praise— (1410)
How,—dressed up like Armida, though a man;
And painted to look pretty, though a fright,—
He still made love so that the ladies swooned,
Being an eunuch. “Ah, Rinaldo mine!
“But to breathe by thee while Jove slays us both!”
All the poor bloodless creature never felt,
Si, do, re, me, fa, squeak and squall—for what?
Two gold zecchines the evening! Here’s my slave,
Whose body and soul depend upon my nod,
Can’t falter out the first note in the scale (1420)
For her life! Why blame me if I take the life?
All women cannot give men love, forsooth!
No, nor all pullets lay the henwife eggs—
Whereat she bids them remedy the fault,
Brood on a chalk-ball: soon the nest is stocked—
Otherwise, to the plucking and the spit!
This wife of mine was of another mood—
Would not begin the lie that ends with truth,
Nor feign the love that brings real love about:
Wherefore I judged, sentenced and punished her. (1430)
But why particularise, defend the deed?
Say that I hated her for no one cause
Beyond my pleasure so to do,—what then?
Just on as much incitement acts the world,
All of you! Look and like! You favour one,
Brow-beat another, leave alone a third,—
Why should you master natural caprice?
Pure nature! Try—plant elm by ash in file;
Both unexceptionable trees enough,
They ought to overlean each other, pair (1440)
At top and arch across the avenue
The whole path to the pleasaunce: do they so—
Or loathe, lie off abhorrent each from each?
Lay the fault elsewhere, since we must have faults:
Mine shall have been,—seeing there’s ill in the end
Come of my course,—that I fare somehow worse
For the way I took,—my fault…as God’s my judge
I see not where the fault lies, that’s the truth!
I ought…oh, ought in my own interest
Have let the whole adventure go untried, (1450)
This chance by marriage,—or else, trying it,
Ought to have turned it to account some one
O’ the hundred otherwises? Ay, my friend,
Easy to say, easy to do,—step right
Now you’ve stepped left and stumbled on the thing,
—The red thing! Doubt I any more than you
That practice makes man perfect? Give again
The chance,—same marriage and no other wife,
Be sure I’ll edify you! That’s because
I’m practised, grown fit guide for Guido’s self. (1460)
You proffered guidance,—I know, none so well,—
You laid down law and rolled decorum out,
From pulpit- corner on the gospel-side,—
Wanted to make your great experience mine,
Save me the personal search and pains so: thanks!
Take your word on life’s use? When I take his—
The muzzled ox that treadeth out
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