How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:

And I have laboured somewhat in

my time

And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures - let him try!
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough, it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem

Meted on each side by the angel's reed,

For Leonard, Rafael, Angelo and me

To cover
While I have mine! So-

the three first without a wife,

still they overcome

Because there's still Lucrezia,

as I choose.

Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.

13

BEFORE.

1.

LET them fight it out, friend! things have gone too far.
God must judge the couple! leave them as they are
- Whichever one's the guiltless, to his glory,
And whichever one the guilt 's with, to my story.

2.

Why, you would not bid men, sunk in such a slough, Strike no arm out further, stick and stink as now, Leaving right and wrong to settle the embroilment, Heaven with snaky Hell, in torture and entoilment?

3.

Which of them 's the culprit, how must he conceive
God's the queen he caps to, laughing in his sleeve!
'Tis but decent to profess one's self beneath her.
Still, one must not be too much in earnest either.

4.

Better sin the whole sin, sure that God observes, Then go live his life out! life will try his nerves, When the sky which noticed all, makes no disclosure, And the earth keeps up her terrible composure.

5.

Let him pace at pleasure, past the walls of rose,
Pluck their fruits when grape-trees graze him as he goes.
For he 'gins to guess the purpose of the garden,
With the sly mute thing beside there for a warden.

6.

What's the leopard-dog-thing, constant to his side,
A leer and lie in every eye on its obsequious hide ?
When will come an end of all the mock obeisance,
And the price appear that pays for the misfeasance?

7.

So much for the culprit. Who's the martyred man?
Let him bear one stroke more, for be sure he can.
He that strove thus evil's lump with good to leaven,
Let him give his blood at last and get his heaven.

8.

All or nothing, stake it! trusts he God or no?
Thus far and no further? further? be it so.
Now, enough of your chicane of prudent pauses,
Sage provisos, sub-intents, and saving-clauses.

9.

Ah, "forgive" you bid him? While God's champion

lives,

Wrong shall be resisted: dead, why he forgives.

But

you must not end my friend ere you begin him Evil stands not crowned on earth, while breath is in him.

10.

Will the wronger, at this last of all,

both the fighters to their places—

"I did wrong," rising in his fall?

go,

While I count three, step you back as many paces.

AFTER.

TAKE the cloak from his face, and at first
Let the corpse do its worst.

How he lies in his rights of a man!
Death has done all death can.

And absorbed in the new life he leads,

He recks not, he heeds

Nor his wrong nor my vengeance

On his senses alike,

- both strike

And are lost in the solemn and strange

Surprise of the change.

Ha, what avails death to erase

His offence, my disgrace?

I would we were boys as of old

In the field, by the fold

His outrage, God's patience, man's scorn
Were so easily borne.

I stand here now, he lies in his place —

Cover the face.