“Because Pompilia’s purity prevails,
“Conclude you, all truth triumphs in the end?
“So might those old inhabitants of the ark,
“Witnessing haply their dove’s safe return,
“Pronounce there was no danger all the while
“O’ the deluge, to the creature’s counterparts,
“Aught that beat wing i’ the world, was white or soft,—
“And that the lark, the thrush, the culver too,
“Might equally have traversed air, found earth, (480)
“And brought back olive-branch in unharmed bill.
“Methinks I hear the Patriarch’s warning voice—
“‘Though this one breast, by miracle, return,
“‘No wave rolls by, in all the waste, but bears
“‘Within it some dead dove-like thing as dear,
“‘Beauty made blank and harmlessness destroyed!’
“How many chaste and noble sister-fames
“Wanted the extricating hand, and lie
“Strangled, for one Pompilia proud above
“The welter, plucked from the world’s calumny, (490)
“Stupidity, simplicity,—who cares?
“Long ago, and a false faith lingered still,
“As shades do, though the morning-star be out.
“Doubtless, some pagan of the twilight-day
“Has often pointed to a cavern- mouth,
“Obnoxious to beholders, hard by Rome,
“And said,—nor he a bad man, no, nor fool,—
“Only a man, so, blind like all his mates,—
“‘Here skulk in safety, lurk, defying law, (500)
“‘The devotees to execrable creed,
“‘Adoring—with what culture … Jove, avert
“‘Thy vengeance from us worshippers of thee! …
“‘What rites obscene—their idol-god, an Ass!’
“So went the word forth, so acceptance found,
“So century re- echoed century,
“Cursed the accursed,—and so, from sire to son,
“You Romans cried ‘The offscourings of our race
“‘Corrupt within the depths there: fitly, fiends
“‘Perform a temple-service o’er the dead: (510)
“‘Child, gather garment round thee, pass nor pry!’
“So groaned your generations: till the time
“Grew ripe, and lightning hath revealed, belike,—
“Thro’ crevice peeped into by curious fear,—
“Some object even fear could recognise
“I’ the place of spectres; on the illumined wall,
“To-wit, some nook, tradition talks about,
“Narrow and short, a corpse’s length, no more:
“And by it, in the due receptacle,
“The little rude brown lamp of earthenware, (520)
“The cruse, was meant for flowers, but held the blood,
“The rough-scratched palm-branch, and the legend left
“Pro Christo. Then the mystery lay clear:
“The abhorred one was a martyr all the time,
“A saint whereof earth was not worthy. What?
“Do you continue in the old belief?
“Where blackness bides unbroke, must devils be?
“Is it so certain, not another cell
“O’ the myriad that make up the catacomb,
“Contains some saint a second flash would show? (530)
“Will you ascend into the light of day
“And, having recognised a martyr’s shrine,
“Go join the votaries that gape around
“Each vulgar god that awes the market-place?
“Be these the objects of your praising? See!
“In the outstretched right hand of Apollo, there,
“Is screened a scorpion: housed amid the folds
“Of Juno’s mantle, lo, a cockatrice!
“Each statue of a god was fitlier styled
“Demon and devil. Glorify no brass (540)
“That shines like burnished gold in noonday glare,
“For fools! Be otherwise instructed, you!
“And preferably ponder, ere ye pass,
“Each incident of this strange human play
“Privily acted on a theatre,
“Was deemed secure from every gaze but God’s,—
“Till, of a sudden, earthquake lays wall low
“And lets the world see the wild work inside,
“And how, in petrifaction of surprise,
“The actors stand,—raised arm and planted foot,— (550)
“Mouth as it made, eye as it evidenced,
“Despairing shriek, triumphant hate,—transfixed,
“Both he who takes and she who yields the life.
“Watch obscuration of a fame pearl-pure
“In vapoury films, enwoven circumstance,
“—A soul made weak by its pathetic want
“Of just the first apprenticeship to sin,
“Would thenceforth make the sinning soul secure
“From all foes save itself, that’s truliest foe,— (560)
“For egg turned snake needs fear no serpentry,—
“As ye behold this web of circumstance
“Deepen the more for every thrill and throe,
“Convulsive effort to disperse the films
“And disenmesh the fame o’ the martyr,—mark
“How all those means, the unfriended one pursues,
“To keep the treasure trusted to her breast,
“Each struggle in the flight from death to life,
“How all, by procuration of the powers
“Of darkness, are transformed,—no single ray, (570)
“Shot forth to show and save the inmost star,
“But, passed as through hell’s prism, proceeding black
“To the world that hates white: as ye watch, I say,
“Till dusk and such defacement grow eclipse
“By,—marvellous perversity of man!—
“The inadequacy and inaptitude
“Of that self-same machine, that very law
“Man vaunts, devised to dissipate the gloom,
“Rescue the drowning orb from calumny,
“—Hear law, appointed to defend the just, (580)
“Submit, for best defence, that wickedness
“Was bred of flesh and innate with the bone
“Borne by Pompilia’s spirit for a space,
“And no mere chance fault, passionate and brief:
“Finally, when ye find,—after this touch
“Of man’s protection which intends to mar
“The last pin- point of light and damn the disc,—
“One wave of the hand of God amid the worlds
“Bid vapour vanish, darkness flee away,
“And leave the vexed star culminate in peace (590)
“Approachable no more by earthly
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