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Choices

i prefer smooth peanut butter
to crunchy
mind you
crunchy is all right
but i prefer smooth.

i prefer strawberry jam
to raspberry
mind you
raspberry is tasty
but it's got all those seeds
and i prefer strawberry.

i prefer mustard
to mayonaisse
mind you mayonaisse has it's place
amongst condiments
but is likely to go bad
if left out to long
and poison everyone
so on the whole i prefer mustard.

i prefer cooked meat
to raw meat
for much the same reason
as i prefer mustard to mayonaisse
although it also has to do
with the fact that i don't
like my meat to bleat
or moo or make chicken noises (BAGOCK!)
when i eat
so i tend to avoid the raw
though mind you
the meat that i prefer
may at some time have been raw.

i prefer not to say
why i think so
but i do
and i suppose it's all
just a matter of taste
so if you'd prefer to think so
then crunchy is better
than smooth
even if it does interfere
with the texture of the
peanut butter
and jelly (strawberry) sandwich
which ought to be somewhat
devoid of substance
merely a sticky sweet something
to fill your stomach
put mayonaisse on it
if you like
i'd prefer not to think about it.

poem by Laura Sewell
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Peanut Butter Lovers

Chocolate,
And marmalade...
Is a taste craved by some.
Who may just rave...
About the flavor that comes.

But...
Those who prefer their peanut butter,
Alone...
Spoon it from a jar protected,
As if its diamonds they own.

Peanut butter,
When it's discovered.
Is loved like nothing other,
To soothe one's secret druthers.

It is licked quick from the lips.
And it isn't there long.
Those addicted to their peanut butter,
Have stacks in their homes.

Oh yes, it's peanut butter...
When it's discovered.
Is loved like nothing other,
To soothe one's secret druthers.

Chocolate,
And marmalade...
Is a taste craved by some.
Who may just rave...
About the flavor that comes.

But it's peanut butter,
Loved like nothing other.
It can make one stutter,
When it is discovered.

Oh yes, it's peanut butter...
When it is discovered.
Is loved like nothing other,
To soothe one's secret druthers.

Those peanut butter lovers,
Are different from the others.
Those peanut butter lovers,
Are different from the others.
Those peanut butter lovers.

Keep your chocolate and that marmalade.
Peanut butter lovers,
Are different from the others.
Those peanut butter lovers,
Are different from the others.
Those peanut butter lovers.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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You Put Your Chocolate In My Peanut Butter!

Hey you, you have too much hair and we dont like what you wear
And you have really bad breath so were gonna beat you to death
Because there is plenty of us and only one of you weve got plenty
Of reasons and heres just a few you put your chocolate in my
Peanut butter I was walking and you were in my way you looked
At me without my permission you never even apologized you put
Your chocolate in my peanut butter thats good enough reason for
Me to bash you put your chocolate in my peanut butter thats good
Enough reason for me to smash no justice / theres just us / so trust us
You put your chocolate in my peanut butter you put your chocolate in
My peanut butter you put your chocolate in my peanut butter you put
Your chocolate in my peanut butter

song performed by NOFX
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Jar Of Peanut Butter

You, Me, And A Jar of Peanut Butter
Friday, April 10,2009

Barren landscape spread shore to shore
Passages opened an unspoiled door
Covered now fertile grounds with peanut butter
Succulent tender treat sounds you now mutter

Cries delight the more you utter
Crazy I know but do I stutter?
Warm yet juicy passion’s pink
Youthful fountains from hence I drink

Dinning on fruits garnished sweet little kitten
Taste no haste love bug now I’ve been bitten
Speaking words I’ve never heard
Singing softly the mocking bird

Peaches delight and O’ so eatable
Quite the storm you are so incredible
I so like the taste of peanut butter
So the much for hearts do flutter

As I rub it on your smooth belly
Added now it too guava jelly
Sandwich made sounding fallacious
Elegant debutant our lady gracious

O’ I love it the peanut butter banquet
Feasting cause wires to short circuit
Clear wrapping covers beautiful flowers
Mine to embrace and massage for hours

Nestled peanut butter between airspace
Extricated by tongue from a secret place
Removed I did from her sweetshop
Finished now I shed a teardrop

Lapped ever morsel up like an animal
Feeding time for this fine young cannibal
Concluded clambake of visitation conjugal transience
Feasted on bounty of such magnificence

How I love to ingest peanut butter
A thought shakes me makes me shutter
Listen up for concise I speak and never I stutter
Zesty, testy, smooth, and creamy peanut butter

poem by Wilfred Mellers
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Peanut, Butter, and Jelly

Peanut
The sky is lit
with someone walking in the mist
Butter
Romantic honey moon trips
Peanut and Butter
Together Forever

Hate can't separate them
They stay together
Side by side
Peanut Butter forever

Thick and thin
With Jelly by their side
The three friends stay together
Forever

Peanut, Butter, and Jelly
Stay together
Forever

poem by Jason Colon
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A Canary, And Peanut Butter, And Jelly, Sandwitch.

I once ate a sandwich made of peanut-butter and jelly...
This sandwich, by someone, tasted quite rotten, and smelly.

Into my stomach, uneasily, it went down...
To my face, was sadly, put a frown.

I went to the hospital to have my stomach pumped, where I met a sailor...
Who obviously, had a bad tailor.

You might say, 'that this lad, was a seaman'...
But-for the Navy, he worked, and so-he was no, free man.

This seaman, could not swim...
You might say 'that he joined, on a whim'.

This non-swimming seaman, had a cat...
That was known by all, to eat mice, dogs, or even a bat.

One day this cat, ate a bat, that was owned by a witch...
This witch, got quite angry, at the cat that ate her bat, and
was acting like, a ticked off, bitch.

This witch, turned this cat, into a canary...
How frightening to this canary, this seemed as scary.

Now, this canary, bird...
Got eaten by another cat, and now, was nothing more,
than a rug stained, cat-splattered, turd.

poem by Michael Gale
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I eat peanut butter

I eat peanut butter from a jar
Sitting quitly naked at the bar
Wired in frankincense and cheap olive oil
You can never spot where Ive hidden my old boil

I eat peanut butter with a spoon
Hanging on a telophone from the moon
Looking everywhere for the third rock in my drawer
cause I'm followed by the elaphant whose getting rather cold

I taste peanut butter with marmalade
Its sutured with nectrines with astringent taste
Surrounded by a gang of malefactent tea cups
Coming from Buenos Aries on the back of maple syrup

want to ride the posse of little bitty irishmen?

I lick peanut butter from outerspace
I was born southside so it goes to my waist
I lick peanut butter from a dress
Its my wifes who i never met

I take peanut butter to a zoo
Watching the contortions of the Gaia philharmonic
Exasperating riddles which their tvs cant decode
While swimming in the puzzles of a Lincoln camry ford

Bet you wished their was some Peanut butter
to explain this ghastly poem?

poem by Kevin Patrick
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Peanut Butter & Jelly

I'm feeling sexy
I'm feeling sexy
(rock like this, rock like this)
[Verse 1:]
Saturday & I feel like letting it go
Sho 'nuff I got 'em all lined up in a row
Sunset come & I'm coming to
Now I see you rockin' baby so I'm rocking with you (ahh)
Shout out but I just aint loud enough
I'm trying to touch ya but I can't get close enough
Cross my legs now I'm flirting with you
Got a jones in my bones that's jumping for you (ohhh)
I know you like I'ma give to you
Hooked on the feeling that you putting me through
Taste you can't get enough
Sweetness comes get my love
[Chorus:]
(Uh Ohh)
It's like Peanut Butter & Jelly
[Repeat 3x]
Stickin to me so sweet on you
(Uh Ohh)
It's like Peanut Butter & Jelly
[Repeat 3x]
Rockin' with me rockin' with you
[Verse 2:]
So coolie while you rockin this party hottie
When you leavin think I'm leavin' with you
Let me know what you wanna do
Got my heart beatin' fast & it's beatin' for you
(Ohh) You got the rhythm cuz you feelin' da beat
Tricks up your sleeve just show them to me
(And I know you want to)
Show it to me give it to me
All my ladies gotta work it like this
Gotta show em what your workin with
All my ladies gotta work it like this
Gotta show em what your workin with
[Chorus]
[Bridge:]
(ahh, ohh, ahh) [Spoken:] Oh I'm getting & I'm feelin it
(ahh, ohh, ahh) [Spoken:] Cuz I'ma rock like this
[Repeat 2x]
[B hook]
All my ladies gotta work it like this
Gotta show em what your workin with
[Repeat 4x]
[Repeat chorus 2x]
[Repeat B hook 2x]
[Repeat bridge 3x]

song performed by Christina Milian
Added by Lucian Velea
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Peanut Butter & Jelly

I'm feeling sexy
I'm feeling sexy
(rock like this, rock like this)
[Verse 1:]
Saturday & I feel like letting it go
Sho 'nuff I got 'em all lined up in a row
Sunset come & I'm coming to
Now I see you rockin' baby so I'm rocking with you (ahh)
Shout out but I just aint loud enough
I'm trying to touch ya but I can't get close enough
Cross my legs now I'm flirting with you
Got a jones in my bones that's jumping for you (ohhh)
I know you like I'ma give to you
Hooked on the feeling that you putting me through
Taste you can't get enough
Sweetness comes get my love
[Chorus:]
(Uh Ohh)
It's like Peanut Butter & Jelly
[Repeat 3x]
Stickin to me so sweet on you
(Uh Ohh)
It's like Peanut Butter & Jelly
[Repeat 3x]
Rockin' with me rockin' with you
[Verse 2:]
So coolie while you rockin this party hottie
When you leavin think I'm leavin' with you
Let me know what you wanna do
Got my heart beatin' fast & it's beatin' for you
(Ohh) You got the rhythm cuz you feelin' da beat
Tricks up your sleeve just show them to me
(And I know you want to)
Show it to me give it to me
All my ladies gotta work it like this
Gotta show em what your workin with
All my ladies gotta work it like this
Gotta show em what your workin with
[Chorus]
[Bridge:]
(ahh, ohh, ahh) [Spoken:] Oh I'm getting & I'm feelin it
(ahh, ohh, ahh) [Spoken:] Cuz I'ma rock like this
[Repeat 2x]
[B hook]
All my ladies gotta work it like this
Gotta show em what your workin with
[Repeat 4x]
[Repeat chorus 2x]
[Repeat B hook 2x]
[Repeat bridge 3x]

song performed by Christina Milian
Added by Lucian Velea
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Peanut Butter: My Old Friend.....[Personal; Food]

I had a peanut butter sandwich today
which made me think of all the way....
sssss my life has been touched by that
stick-to-your-mouth sludge of peanut fat.

Not 'touched' in the sense that's it's shaped my life,
but when I open a jar and take up a knife
or a spoon, I can picture times of enjoy-
ment as an adult consumer and as a boy.

Of course I'm lucky in that I generally enjoy food
even if I'm in a rare bad mood.

I assume pb was a common snack in my childhood,
though I'm not sure it was. My memory is not that good.
But I do remember my Mom made cookies from it;
I helped her. And the first cooled cookie I'm sure I bit,
paying some attention to the crisscross pattern on top,
or the sometimes-present big chocolate drop.
And when I visited my childhood neighbor, Helen, it's a good bet
that sometimes a peanut butter sandwich I would get.
[But I really better remember that Helen's kitchen at times had cake.
I assume her mother, Betty, the cake did make.]
At Halloween there were pb 'cups' made by Reeses.
Chocolate and pb. It's good they were small pieces!

As an adult pb has been with me off and on.
Probably when I shared a home with my brother Don,
and when Shannon, my daughter, was young (that makes me smile) ,
and when I lived in a storage garage for a short while.
I used to put it on plain warm toast, but
perhaps mixed-with-vanilla-ice cream I enjoyed it most.
I can't tell you how it would taste on sliced tomato,
but I can say it wasn't good when tried on mashed potato! !

And as I type today there's an unsealed jar nearby.
My wife cautions me against too much, but I'm not sure why.
From time to time it's a treat on cereal or bread,
but usually it's just a spoon of it I stick into my head.

poem by Bri Edwards
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Peanut Butter Conspiracy

By: jimmy buffett
1973
Lookin back at my hard luck days
I really do have to laugh
Workin in a dive for twenty six dollars
Spendin it all on grass
We were hungry hard-luck heroes
Tryin just to stay alive
Wed go down to the corner grocery
This is how wed survive
Chorus:
Whos gonna steal the peanut butter
Ill get the can of sardines
Runnin up and down the aisle of the mini mart
Stickin food in our jeans
We never took more than we could eat
There was plenty left on the rack
We all swore if we ever got rich
We would pay the mini mart back
Yes sir! yes sir!
We would pay the mini mart back
It was a two man operation
Had it all down on a note
Ricky would watch that big round mirror
And Id fill up my coat
Then wed head for the check-out aisle
With a lemon and a bottle of beer
Into the car, got to make it on home
Suppertimes getting near
Chorus:
So whos gonna steal the peanut butter
Ill get the can of sardines
Runnin up and down the aisle of the mini mart
Stickin food in our jeans
Never took more than we could eat
There was plenty left on the rack
We all swore if we ever got rich
We would pay the mini mart back
Yes sir! yes sir!
We would pay the mini mart back
I guess every good picker has had some hard times
I sure had my share
Its really kinda funny to laugh at em now
But I dont want to go back there
So every now and then when Im in the grocery
Ill take a little but not much
cause you never know when those hard timesll hitcha
And I dont want to lose my touch
Chorus:
So whos gonna steal the peanut butter
Ill get the can of sardines
Runnin up and down the aisle of the mini mart
Stickin food in our jeans
We never took more than we could eat
There was plenty left on the rack
We all swore if we ever got rich
We would pay the mini mart back
Yes sir! yes sir!
We would pay the mini mart back
Yes sir, yes sir
We would pay the mini mart back

song performed by Jimmy Buffett
Added by Lucian Velea
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Peanut-Butter Sandwich

I'll sing you a poem of a silly young king
Who played with the world at the end of a string,
But he only loved one single thing—
And that was just a peanut-butter sandwich.
His scepter and his royal gowns,
His regal throne and golden crowns
Were brown and sticky from the mounds
And drippings from each peanut-butter sandwich.
His subjects all were silly fools
For he had passed a royal rule
That all that they could learn in school
Was how to make a peanut-butter sandwich.
He would not eat his sovereign steak,
He scorned his soup and kingly cake,
And told his courtly cook to bake
An extra-sticky peanut-butter sandwich.
And then one day he took a bit
And started chewing with delight,
But found his mouth was stuck quite tight
From that last bite of peanut-butter sandwich.
His brother pulled, his sister pried,
The wizard pushed, his mother cried,
'My boy's committed suicide
From eating his last peanut-butter sandwich!'
The dentist came, and the royal doc.
The royal plumber banged and knocked,
But still those jaws stayed tightly locked.
Oh darn that sticky peanut-butter sandwich!
The carpenter, he tried with pliers,
The telephone man tried with wires,
The firemen, they tried with fire,
But couldn't melt that peanut-butter sandwich.
With ropes and pulleys, drills and coil,
With steam and lubricating oil—
For twenty years of tears and toil—
They fought that awful peanut-butter sandwich.
Then all his royal subjects came.
They hooked his jaws with grapplin' chains
And pulled both ways with might and main
Against that stubborn peanut-butter sandwich.
Each man and woman, girl and boy
Put down their ploughs and pots and toys
And pulled until kerack! Oh, joy—
They broke right through that peanut-butter sandwich
A puff of dust, a screech, a squeak—
The king's jaw opened with a creak.
And then in voice so faint and weak—
The first words that they heard him speak
Were, 'How about a peanut-butter sandwich?'

poem by Sheldon Allan Silverstein
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The Peanut-Butter Cookie 2

-How old was he?
-About my age.
-Tell me about him, again.
-There's not much to tell. I was standing on the curb. I didn't see him coming. Suddenly, there he was. I found myself looking into his eyes. They were gray, I think.
-And?
-He stopped. He opened the paper bag he was carrying and held it out. Obviously, I was supposed to help myself. The bag was jaded and looked like it had seen alot of action, that particular morning.
-The cookies!
-Yep, the cookies. It wouldn't be nice to refuse. In those days, people still worried about such things.
-Courtesy is the most efficient form of coercion. Everybody wins.
-Be that as it may, I reached into the bag and took out-surprise-a peanut-butter cookie. I knew it was a peanut-butter cookie. It was sandy blond and had hatch marks from a fork on top.
-So you ate the cookie?
-Unh-unh.His hands were filthy, the little urchin, my doppelganger. But I waved the cookie around as if I was delighted to have it, and wanted, at that moment, nothing more. It seemed the nice thing.
-So what happened to him?
-How should I know? Suddenly he was gone.
Awful! Is consciousness just circular memory? Is reality?
-Gone. He moved on. Rejoined the parade.
-But he wormed his way into your menagerie of long-term memories-
-I guess.
-It's sad, you know.
-Why do you say that?
-Because he was so young and so poor. He's probably not even alive. He probably died of starvation. A protein deficiency.
-That's morbid. He may be quite alive and kicking. He may have won the lottery for twenty million and have eighteen grandkids.
-You're right, I guess. I just assumed...
-Don't. It tells more about the person making the assumption than about reality. People always assume tragedy.
-You're right, of course. How did it end?
-I heard my mother calling.Looking over my shoulder I saw the statue of Billy Penn-way up, the sun glinting off his hat. Then, there was my mother. In the flesh. Big as life. She grabbed my wrist and hustled me on. She was mad. Because I got away, I guess.
-And that was that?
-And that was that.

poem by Morgan Michaels
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Growing Up Hard

Counting pennies, to buy a loaf of bread
More often than not, hungry going to bed
Us carrying mothers sewing machine, every thirty days
Three blocks to the pawn shop, till the welfare check pays
Got the welfare check, would get the sewing machine out
We'd pawn it again next month, without a doubt
Living on commodities, free peanut butter and cheese
Going to school without a coat we'd always freeze
We never had many nice clothes to wear
Mother would mend them when they began to tear
Having meat for dinner was a real rare thing
Breakfast and supper, beans and rice we were eating
We wore our shoes until they fell apart
Mother could only buy one of us a pair, at the mart
Quiet often we were left all by ourselves
While mother worked or went out for cocktails
The days weren't so bad alone, we were in school
But young and left alone at night was really cruel
Feeling so alone, just us three
Please stay home tonight mama, we'd plea
Times were hard when I was a child
This poem I've written, is putting it mild

poem by Donna Nimmo
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So I Happen to Prefer Whole Wheat

Of course I'm sleazy!
Isn't that one of the requirements,
I had to admit to get you to date me?

'But I didn't think you were serious when I asked! '

So when did you take notice of it?
Before or after I began to lick,
The crunchy peanut butter off your nipples.

'Yeah...
But do you think holding them,
Between slices of whole wheat bread...
Really accomplishes anything? '

That's a matter of opinion!
So I happen to prefer whole wheat bread.
What's the problem here?
I was going to use the muffins.
Do you want me to use the muffins?

'I'm sensitive to multi-grain.'

Huh?

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse
That poseth? (be the phrase accorded me!)
Each feminine delight of florid lip,
Eyes brimming o'er and brow bowed down with love,
Marmoreal neck and bosom uberous,—
Glad on the paper in a trice they go
To help his notion of the Mother-maid:
Methinks I see it, chalk a little stumped!
Yea and her babe—that flexure of soft limbs,
That budding face imbued with dewy sleep,
Contribute each an excellence to Christ.
Nay, since he humbly lent companionship,
Even the poor ass, unpanniered and elate
Stands, perks an ear up, he a model too;
While clouted shoon, staff, scrip and water-groud,—
Aught may betoken travel, heat and haste,—
No jot nor tittle of these but in its turn
Ministers to perfection of the piece:
Till now, such piece before him, part by part,—
Such prelude ended,—pause our painter may,
Submit his fifty studies one by one,
And in some sort boast "I have served my lords."

But what? And hath he painted once this while?
Or when ye cry "Produce the thing required,
"Show us our picture shall rejoice its niche,
"Thy Journey through the Desert done in oils!"—
What, doth he fall to shuffling 'mid his sheets,
Fumbling for first this, then the other fact
Consigned to paper,—"studies," bear the term!—
And stretch a canvas, mix a pot of paste,
And fasten here a head and there a tail,
(The ass hath one, my Judges!) so dove-tail
Or, rather, ass-tail in, piece sorrily out—
By bits of reproduction of the life—
The picture, the expected Family?
I trow not! do I miss with my conceit
The mark, my lords?—not so my lords were served!
Rather your artist turns abrupt from these,
And preferably buries him and broods
(Quite away from aught vulgar and extern)
On the inner spectrum, filtered through the eye,
His brain-deposit, bred of many a drop,
E pluribus unum: and the wiser he!
For in that brain,—their fancy sees at work,
Could my lords peep indulged,—results alone,
Not processes which nourish such results,
Would they discover and appreciate,—life
Fed by digestion, not raw food itself,
No gobbets but smooth comfortable chyme
Secreted from each snapped-up crudity,—
Less distinct, part by part, but in the whole
Truer to the subject,—the main central truth
And soul o' the picture, would my Judges spy,—
Not those mere fragmentary studied facts
Which answer to the outward frame and flesh—
Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other fact
Of man's staff, woman's stole or infant's clout,
But lo, a spirit-birth conceived of flesh,
Truth rare and real, not transcripts, fact and false.
The studies—for his pupils and himself!
The picture be for our eximious Rome
And—who knows?—satisfy its Governor,
Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought
(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon
('T is bruited) shall be glowing with the brush
Of who hath long surpassed the Florentine,
The Urbinate and … what if I dared add,
Even his master, yea the Cortonese,—
I mean the accomplished Ciro Ferri, Sirs!
(—Did not he die? I'll see before I print.)

End we exordium, Phoebus plucks my ear!
Thus then, just so and no whit otherwise,
Have I,—engaged as I were Ciro's self,
To paint a parallel, a Family,
The patriarch Pietro with his wise old wife
To boot (as if one introduced Saint Anne
By bold conjecture to complete the group)
And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,
Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,
Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretched
In sleep beneath a palm-tree by a spring,
And killed—the very circumstance I paint,
Moving the pity and terror of my lords—
Exactly so have I, a month at least,
Your Fiscal, made me cognizant of facts,
Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forth
Of every piece of evidence in point,
How bloody Herod slew these innocents,—
Until the glad result is gained, the group
Demonstrably presented in detail,
Their slumber and his onslaught,—like as life.
Yea and, availing me of help allowed
By law, discreet provision lest my lords
Be too much troubled by effrontery,—
The rack, law plies suspected crime withal—
(Law that hath listened while the lyrist sang
"Lene tormentum ingenio admoves,"
Gently thou joggest by a twinge the wit,
"Plerumque duro," else were slow to blab!)
Through this concession my full cup runs o'er:
The guilty owns his guilt without reserve.
Therefore by part and part I clutch my case
Which, in entirety now,—momentous task,—
My lords demand, so render them I must,
Since, one poor pleading more and I have done.
But shall I ply my papers, play my proofs,
Parade my studies, fifty in a row,
As though the Court were yet in pupilage,
Claimed not the artist's ultimate appeal?
Much rather let me soar the height prescribed
And, bowing low, proffer my picture's self!
No more of proof, disproof,—such virtue was,
Such vice was never in Pompilia, now!
Far better say "Behold Pompilia!"—(for
I leave the family as unmanageable,
And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.)
Hath calumny imputed to the fair
A blemish, mole on cheek or wart on chin,
Much more, blind hidden horrors best unnamed?
Shall I descend to prove you, point by point,
Never was knock-knee known nor splay-foot found
In Phryne? (I must let the portrait go,
Content me with the model, I believe)—
—I prove this? An indignant sweep of hand,
Dash at and doing away with drapery,
And,—use your eyes, Athenians, smooth she smiles!
Or,—since my client can no longer smile,
And more appropriate instances abound,—
What is this Tale of Tarquin, how the slave
Was caught by him, preferred to Collatine?
Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal,
Look'st the lie dead, Lucretia!

Thus at least
I, by the guidance of antiquity,
(Our one infallible guide) now operate,
Sure that the innocence thus shown is safe;
Sure, too, that, while I plead, the echoes cry
(Lend my weak voice thy trump, sonorous Fame!)
"Monstrosity the Phrynean shape shall mar,
"Lucretia's soul comport with Tarquin's lie,
"When thistles grow on vines or thorns yield figs,
"Or oblique sentence leave this judgment-seat!"

A great theme: may my strength be adequate!
For—paint Pompilia, dares my feebleness?
How did I unaware engage so much
—Find myself undertaking to produce
A faultless nature in a flawless form?
What's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blaze
Of such a crown, such constellation, say,
As jewels here thy front, Humanity!
First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl;
Then childhood—stone which, dew-drop at the first,
(An old conjecture) sucks, by dint of gaze,
Blue from the sky and turns to sapphire so:
Yet both these gems eclipsed by, last and best,
Womanliness and wifehood opaline,
Its milk-white pallor,—chastity,—suffused
With here and there a tint and hint of flame,—
Desire,—the lapidary loves to find.
Such jewels bind conspicuously thy brow,
Pompilia, infant, child, maid, woman, wife—
Crown the ideal in our earth at last!
What should a faculty like mine do here?
Close eyes, or else, the rashlier hurry hand!
Which is to say,—lose no time but begin!
Sermocinando ne declamem, Sirs,
Ultra clepsydram, as our preachers smile,
Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon,
As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge—
Begin at once with marriage, up till when
Little or nothing would arrest your love,
In the easeful life o' the lady; lamb and lamb,
How do they differ? Know one, you know all
Manners of maidenhood: mere maiden she.
And since all lambs are like in more than fleece,
Prepare to find that, lamb-like, she too frisks—
O' the weaker sex, my lords, the weaker sex!
To whom, the Teian teaches us, for gift,
Not strength,—man's dower,—but beauty, nature gave,
"Beauty in lieu of spears, in lieu of shields!"
And what is beauty's sure concomitant,
Nay, intimate essential character,
But melting wiles, deliciousest deceits,
The whole redoubted armoury of love?
Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellings
O' the hair of youth that dances April in,
And easily-imagined Hebe-slips
O'er sward which May makes over-smooth for foot—
These shall we pry into?—or wiselier wink,
Though numerous and dear they may have been?
For lo, advancing Hymen and his pomp!
Discedunt nunc amores, loves, farewell!
Maneat amor, let love, the sole, remain!
Farewell to dewiness and prime of life!
Remains the rough determined day: dance done,
To work, with plough and harrow! What comes next?
'T is Guido henceforth guides Pompilia's step,
Cries "No more friskings o'er the foodful glebe,
"Else, 'ware the whip!" Accordingly,—first crack
O' the thong,—we hear that his young wife was barred,
Cohibita fuit, from the old free life,
Vitam liberiorem ducere.
Demur we? Nowise: heifer brave the hind?
We seek not there should lapse the natural law,
The proper piety to lord and king
And husband: let the heifer bear the yoke!
Only, I crave he cast not patience off,
This hind; for deem you she endures the whip,
Nor winces at the goad, nay, restive, kicks?
What if the adversary's charge be just,
And all untowardly she pursue her way
With groan and grunt, though hind strike ne'er so hard?
If petulant remonstrance made appeal,
Unseasonable, o'erprotracted,—if
Importunate challenge taxed the public ear
When silence more decorously had served
For protestation,—if Pompilian plaint
Wrought but to aggravate Guidonian ire,—
Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be,
Ever companion change, are incident
To altered modes and novelty of life:
The philosophic mind expects no less,
Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sits
Waiting till old things go and new arrive.
Therefore, I hold a husband but inept
Who turns impatient at such transit-time,
As if this running from the rod would last!

Since, even while I speak, the end is reached:
Success awaits the soon-disheartened man.
The parents turn their backs and leave the house,
The wife may wail but none shall intervene:
He hath attained his object, groom and bride
Partake the nuptial bower no soul can see,
Old things are passed and all again is new,
Over and gone the obstacles to peace,
Novorum—tenderly the Mantuan turns
The expression, some such purpose in his eye—
Nascitur ordo! Every storm is laid,
And forth from plain each pleasant herb may peep,
Each bloom of wifehood in abeyance late:
(Confer a passage in the Canticles.)
But what if, as 't is wont with plant and wife,
Flowers,—after a suppression to good end,
Still, when they do spring forth,—sprout here, spread there,
Anywhere likelier than beneath the foot
O' the lawful good-man gardener of the ground?
He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,—still
'T is a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase.
Just so, respecting persons not too much,
The lady, foes allege, put forth each charm
And proper floweret of feminity
To whosoever had a nose to smell
Or breast to deck: what if the charge be true?
The fault were graver had she looked with choice,
Fastidiously appointed who should grasp,
Who, in the whole town, go without the prize!
To nobody she destined donative,
But, first come was first served, the accuser saith.
Put case her sort of … in this kind … escapes
Were many and oft and indiscriminate—
Impute ye as the action were prepense,
The gift particular, arguing malice so?
Which butterfly of the wide air shall brag
"I was preferred to Guido"—when 't is clear
The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast
Open to gnat, midge, bee and moth as well?
One chalice entertained the company;
And if its peevish lord object the more,
Mistake, misname such bounty in a wife,
Haste we to advertise him—charm of cheek,
Lustre of eye, allowance of the lip,
All womanly components in a spouse,
These are no household-bread each stranger's bite
Leaves by so much diminished for the mouth
O' the master of the house at supper-time:
But rather like a lump of spice they lie,
Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighbourhood
Yet greets its lord no lighter by a grain.

Nay, even so, he shall be satisfied!
Concede we there was reason in his wrong,
Grant we his grievance and content the man!
For lo, Pompilia, she submits herself;
Ere three revolving years have crowned their course,
Off and away she puts this same reproach
Of lavish bounty, inconsiderate gift
O' the sweets of wifehood stored to other ends:
No longer shall he blame "She none excludes,"
But substitute "She laudably sees all,
"Searches the best out and selects the same."
For who is here, long sought and latest found,
Waiting his turn unmoved amid the whirl,
"Constans in levitate,"—Ha, my lords?
Calm in his levity,—indulge the quip!—
Since 't is a levite bears the bell away,
Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice.
'T is no ignoble object, husband! Doubt'st?
When here comes tripping Flaccus with his phrase
"Trust me, no miscreant singled from the mob,
"Crede non illum tibi de scelesta
"Plebe delectum," but a man of mark,
A priest, dost hear? Why then, submit thyself!
Priest, ay and very phoenix of such fowl,
Well-born, of culture, young and vigorous,
Comely too, since precise the precept points—
On the selected levite be there found
Nor mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mind
Come all uncandid through the thwarting flesh!
Was not the son of Jesse ruddy, sleek,
Pleasant to look on, pleasant every way?
Since well he smote the harp and sweetly sang,
And danced till Abigail came out to see,
And seeing smiled and smiling ministered
The raisin-cluster and the cake of figs,
With ready meal refreshed the gifted youth,
Till Nabal, who was absent shearing sheep,
Felt heart sink, took to bed (discreetly done—
They might have been beforehand with him else)
And died—woudl Guido have behaved as well!
But ah, the faith of early days is gone,
Heu prisca fides! Nothing died in him
Save courtesy, good sense and proper trust,
Which, when they ebb from souls they should o'erflow,
Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness.
(The Pope, we know, is Neapolitan
And relishes a sea-side simile.)
Deserted by each charitable wave,
Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now!
Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the fool
With any peccadillo, he responds
"Truly I beat my wife through jealousy,
"Imprisoned her and punished otherwise,
"Being jealous: now would threaten, sword in hand,
"Now manage to mix poison in her sight,
"And so forth: jealously I dealt, in fine."
Concede thus much, and what remains to prove?
Have I to teach my masters what effect
Hath jealousy, and how, befooling men,
It makes false true, abuses eye and ear,
Turns mere mist adamantine, loads with sound
Silence, and into void and vacancy
Crowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes?
Therefore who owns "I watched with jealousy
"My wife," adds "for no reason in the world!"
What need that, thus proved madman, he remark
"The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?—
Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,
And not an inch too long for that rare pie
(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)
Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;
Meant to regale some moody splenetic
Who, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift,
Spying I know not what Lernæan snake
I' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsooth
The dainty in the dust.

Enough! Prepare,
Such lunes announced, for downright lunacy!
Insanit homo, threat succeeds to threat,
And blow redoubles blow,—his wife, the block.
But, if a block, shall not she jar the hand
That buffets her? The injurious idle stone
Rebounds and hits the head of him who flung.
Causeless rage breeds, i' the wife now, rageful cause,
Tyranny wakes rebellion from its sleep.
Rebellion, say I?—rather, self-defence,
Laudable wish to live and see good days,
Pricks our Pompilia now to fly the fool
By any means, at any price,—nay, more,
Nay, most of all, i' the very interest
O' the fool that, baffled of his blind desire
At any price, were truliest victor so.
Shall he effect his crime and lose his soul?
No, dictates duty to a loving wife!
Far better that the unconsummate blow,
Adroitly baulked by her, should back again,
Correctively admonish his own pate!

Crime then,—the Court is with me?—she must crush:
How crush it? By all efficacious means;
And these,—why, what in woman should they be?
"With horns the bull, with teeth the lion fights;
"To woman," quoth the lyrist quoted late,
"Nor teeth, nor horns, but beauty, Nature gave.
Pretty i' the Pagan! Who dares blame the use
Of armoury thus allowed for natural,—
Exclaim against a seeming-dubious play
O' the sole permitted weapon, spear and shield
Alike, resorted to i' the circumstance
By poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat piled
Arts that allure, the magic nod and wink,
The witchery of gesture, spell of word,
Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend,
Yea stranger, as a champion on her side?
Such man, being but mere man, ('t was all she knew),
Must be made sure by beauty's silken bond,
The weakness that subdues the strong, and bows
Wisdom alike and folly. Grant the tale
O' the husband, which is false, were proved and true
To the letter—or the letters, I should say,
Abominations he professed to find
And fix upon Pompilia and the priest,—
Allow them hers—for though she could not write,
In early days of Eve-like innocence
That plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree,
Yet, at the Serpent's word, Eve plucks and eats
And knows—especially how to read and write:
And so Pompilia,—as the move o' the maw,
Quoth Persius, makes a parrot bid "Good day!"
A crow salute the concave, and a pie
Endeavour at proficiency in speech,—
So she, through hunger after fellowship,
May well have learned, though late, to play the scribe:
As indeed, there's one letter on the list
Explicitly declares did happen here.
"You thought my letters could be none of mine,"
She tells her parents—"mine, who wanted skill;
"But now I have the skill, and write, you see!"
She needed write love-letters, so she learned,
"Negatas artifex sequi voces"—though
This letter nowise 'scapes the common lot,
But lies i' the condemnation of the rest,
Found by the husband's self who forged them all.
Yet, for the sacredness of argument,
For this once an exemption shall it plead—
Anything, anything to let the wheels
Of argument run glibly to their goal!
Concede she wrote (which were preposterous)
This and the other epistle,—what of it?
Where does the figment touch her candid fame?
Being in peril of her life—"my life,
"Not an hour's purchase," as the letter runs,—
And having but one stay in this extreme,
Out of the wide world but a single friend—
What could she other than resort to him,
And how with any hope resort but thus?
Shall modesty dare bid a stranger brave
Danger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf—
Think to entice the sternness of the steel
Yet spare love's loadstone moving manly mind?
—Most of all, when such mind is hampered so
By growth of circumstance athwart the life
O' the natural man, that decency forbids
He stoop and take the common privilege,
Say frank "I love," as all the vulgar do.
A man is wedded to philosophy,
Married to statesmanship; a man is old;
A man is fettered by the foolishness
He took for wisdom and talked ten years since;
A man is, like our friend the Canon here,
A priest, and wicked if he break his vow:
Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day?
Despite the coil of such encumbrance here,
Suppose this man could love, unhappily,
And would love, dared he only let love show!
In case the woman of his love, speaks first,
From what embarrassment she sets him free!
"'T is I who break reserve, begin appeal,
"Confess that, whether you love me or no,
"I love you!" What an ease to dignity,
What help of pride from the hard high-backed chair
Down to the carpet where the kittens bask,
All under the pretence of gratitude!

From all which, I deduce—the lady here
Was bound to proffer nothing short of love
To the priest whose service was to save her. What?
Shall she propose him lucre, dust o' the mine,
Rubbish o' the rock, some diamond, muckworms prize,
Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish?
Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.
'T is love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast,
Till all the Samson sink into the snare!
Because, permit the end—permit therewith
Means to the end!

How say you, good my lords?
I hope you heard my adversary ring
The changes on this precept: now, let me
Reverse the peal! Quia dato licito fine,
Ad illum assequendum ordinata
Non sunt damnanda media,—licit end
Enough was found in mere escape from death,
To legalize our means illicit else
Of feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.
Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,
(See that Idyllium Moschi) seeking help,
In the anxiety of motherhood,
Allowably promised "Who shall bring report
"Where he is wandered to, my winged babe,
"I give him for reward a nectared kiss;
"But who brings safely back the truant's self,
"His be a super-sweet makes kiss seem cold!"
Are not these things writ for example-sake?

To such permitted motive, then, refer
All those professions, else were hard explain,
Of hope, fear, jealousy, and the rest of love!
He is Myrtillus, Amaryllis she,
She burns, he freezes,—all a mere device
To catch and keep the man, may save her life,
Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps!
Worst, once, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns:
Feigning,—the liker innocence to guilt,
The truer to the life in what she feigns!
How if Ulysses,—when, for public good
He sunk particular qualms and played the spy,
Entered Troy's hostile gate in beggar's garb—
How if he first had boggled at this clout,
Grown dainty o'er that clack-dish? Grime is grace
To whoso gropes amid the dung for gold.

Hence, beyond promises, we praise each proof
That promise was not simply made to break,
Mere moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:
We praise, as consequent and requisite,
What, enemies allege, were more than words,
Deeds—meetings at the window, twilight-trysts,
Nocturnal entertainments in the dim
Old labyrinthine palace; lies, we know—
Inventions we, long since, turned inside out.
Must such external semblance of intrigue
Demonstrate that intrigue there lurks perdue?
Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut?
He were a Molinist who dared maintain
That midnight meetings in a screened alcove
Must argue folly in a matron—since
So would he bring a slur on Judith's self,
Commended beyond women, that she lured
The lustful to destruction through his lust.
Pompilia took not Judith's liberty,
No faulchion find you in her hand to smite,
No damsel to convey in dish the head
Of Holophernes,—style the Canon so—
Or is it the Count? If I entangle me
With my similitudes,—if wax wings melt,
And earthward down I drop, not mine the fault:
Blame your beneficence, O Court, O sun,
Whereof the beamy smile affects my flight!
What matter, so Pompilia's fame revive
I' the warmth that proves the bane of Icarus?

Yea, we have shown it lawful, necessary
Pompilia leave her husband, seek the house
O' the parents: and because 'twixt home and home
Lies a long road with many a danger rife,
Lions by the way and serpents in the path,
To rob and ravish,—much behoves she keep
Each shadow of suspicion from fair fame,
For her own sake much, but for his sake more,
The ingrate husband's. Evidence shall be,
Plain witness to the world how white she walks
I' the mire she wanders through ere Rome she reach.
And who so proper witness as a priest?
Gainsay ye? Let me hear who dares gainsay!
I hope we still can punish heretics!
"Give me the man" I say with him of Gath,
"That we may fight together!" None, I think:
The priest is granted me.

Then, if a priest,
One juvenile and potent: else, mayhap,
That dragon, our Saint George would slay, slays him.
And should fair face accompany strong hand,
The more complete equipment: nothing mars
Work, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flaw
I' the worker: as 't is said Saint Paul himself
Deplored the check o' the puny presence, still
Cheating his fulmination of its flash,
Albeit the bolt therein went true to oak.
Therefore the agent, as prescribed, she takes,—
Both juvenile and potent, handsome too,—
In all obedience: "good," you grant again.
Do you? I would you were the husband, lords!
How prompt and facile might departure be!
How boldly would Pompilia and the priest
March out of door, spread flag at beat of drum,
But that inapprehensive Guido grants
Neither premiss nor yet conclusion here,
And, purblind, dreads a bear in every bush!
For his own quietude and comfort, then,
Means must be found for flight in masquerade
At hour when all things sleep.—"Save jealousy!"
Right, Judges! Therefore shall the lady's wit
Supply the boon thwart nature baulks him of,
And do him service with the potent drug
(Helen's nepenthe, as my lords opine)
Which respites blessedly each fretted nerve
O' the much-enduring man: accordingly,
There lies he, duly dosed and sound asleep,
Relieved of woes or real or raved about.
While soft she leaves his side, he shall not wake;
Nor stop who steals away to join her friend,
Nor do him mischief should he catch that friend
Intent on more than friendly office,—nay,
Nor get himself raw head and bones laid bare
In payment of his apparition!

Thus
Would I defend the step,—were the thing true
Which is a fable,—see my former speech,—
That Guido slept (who never slept a wink)
Through treachery, an opiate from his wife,
Who not so much as knew what opiates mean.
Now she may start: or hist,—a stoppage still!
A journey is an enterprise of cost!
As in campaigns, we fight but others pay,
Suis expensis, nemo militat.
'T is Guido's self we guard from accident,
Ensuring safety to Pompilia, versed
Nowise in misadventures by the way,
Hard riding and rough quarters, the rude fare,
The unready host, What magic mitigates
Each plague of travel to the unpractised wife?
Money, sweet Sirs! And were the fiction fact
She helped herself thereto with liberal hand
From out her husband's store,—what fitter use
Was ever husband's money destined to?
With bag and baggage thus did Dido once
Decamp,—for more authority, a queen!

So is she fairly on her route at last,
Prepared for either fortune: nay and if
The priest, now all a-glow with enterprise,
Cool somewhat presently when fades the flush
O' the first adventure, clouded o'er belike
By doubts, misgivings how the day may die,
Though born with such auroral brilliance,—if
The brow seem over pensive and the lip
'Gin lag and lose the prattle lightsome late,—
Vanquished by tedium of a prolonged jaunt
In a close carriage o'er a jolting road,
With only one young female substitute
For seventeen other Canons of ripe age
Were wont to keep him company in church,—
Shall not Pompilia haste to dissipate
The silent cloud that, gathering, bodes her bale?—
Prop the irresoluteness may portend
Suspension of the project, check the flight,
Bring ruin on them both? Use every means,
Since means to the end are lawful! What i' the way
Of wile should have allowance like a kiss
Sagely and sisterly administered,
Sororia saltem oscula? We find
Such was the remedy her wit applied
To each incipient scruple of the priest,
If we believe,—as, while my wit is mine
I cannot,—what the driver testifies,
Borsi, called Venerino, the mere tool
Of Guido and his friend the Governor,—
Avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch,
After long rotting in imprisonment,
As price of liberty and favour: long
They tempted, he at last succumbed, and lo
Counted them out full tale each kiss and more,
"The journey being one long embrace," quoth he.
Still, though we should believe the driver's lie,
Nor even admit as probable excuse,
Right reading of the riddle,—as I urged
In my first argument, with fruit perhaps—
That what the owl-like eyes (at back of head!)
O' the driver, drowsed by driving night and day,
Supposed a vulgar interchange of lips,
This was but innocent jog of head 'gainst head,
Cheek meeting jowl as apple may touch pear
From branch and branch contiguous in the wind,
When Autumn blusters and the orchard rocks:—
That rapid run and the rough road were cause
O' the casual ambiguity, no harm
I' the world to eyes awake and penetrative.
Say,—not to grasp a truth I can release
And safely fight without, yet conquer still,—
Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again!
Such osculation was a potent means,
A very efficacious help, no doubt:
Such with a third part of her nectar did
Venus imbue: why should Pompilia fling
The poet's declaration in his teeth?—
Pause to employ what,—since it had success,
And kept the priest her servant to the end,—
We must presume of energy enough,
No whit superfluous, so permissible?
The goal is gained: day, night and yet a day
Have run their round: a long and devious road
Is traversed,—many manners, various men
Passed in view, what cities did they see,
What hamlets mark, what profitable food
For after-meditation cull and store!
Till Rome, that Rome whereof—this voice
Would it might make our Molinists observe,
That she is built upon a rock nor shall
Their powers prevail against her!—Rome, I say,
Is all but reached; one stage more and they stop
Saved: pluck up heart, ye pair, and forward, then!

Ah, Nature—baffled she recurs, alas!
Nature imperiously exacts her due,
Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak:
Pompilia needs must acquiesce and swoon,
Give hopes alike and fears a breathing-while.
The innocent sleep soundly: sound she sleeps,
So let her slumber, then, unguarded save
By her own chastity, a triple mail,
And his good hand whose stalwart arms have borne
The sweet and senseless burthen like a babe
From coach to coach,—the serviceable strength!
Nay, what and if he gazed rewardedly
On the pale beauty prisoned in embrace,
Stooped over, stole a balmy breath perhaps
For more assurance sleep was not decease—
"Ut vidi," "how I saw!" succeeded by
"Ut perii," "how I sudden lost my brains!"
—What harm ensued to her unconscious quite?
For, curiosity—how natural!
Importunateness—what a privilege
In the ardent sex! And why curb ardour here?
How can the priest but pity whom he saved?
And pity is so near to love, and love
So neighbourly to all unreasonableness!
As to love's object, whether love were sage
Or foolish, could Pompilia know or care,
Being still sound asleep, as I premised?
Thus the philosopher absorbed by thought,
Even Archimedes, busy o'er a book
The while besiegers sacked his Syracuse,
Was ignorant of the imminence o' the point
O' the sword till it surprised him: let it stab,
And never knew himself was dead at all.
So sleep thou on, secure whate'er betide!
For thou, too, hast thy problem hard to solve-
How so much beauty is compatible
With so much innocence!

Fit place, methinks,
While in this task she rosily is lost,
To treat of and repel objection here
Which,—frivolous, I grant,—my mind misgives,
May somehow still have flitted, gadfly-like,
And teased the Court at times—as if, all said
And done, there seemed, the Court might nearly say,
In a certain acceptation, somewhat more
Of what may pass for insincerity,
Falsehood, throughout the course Pompilia took,
Than befits Christian. Pagans held, we know,
Man always ought to aim at good and truth,
Not always put one thing in the same words:
Non idem semper dicere sed spectare
Debemus. But the Pagan yoke was light;
"Lie not at all," the exacter precept bids:
Each least lie breaks the law,—is sin, we hold.
I humble me, but venture to submit—
What prevents sin, itself is sinless, sure:
And sin, which hinders sin of deeper dye,
Softens itself away by contrast so.
Conceive me! Little sin, by none at all,
Were properly condemned for great: but great,
By greater, dwindles into small again.
Now, what is greatest sin of womanhood?
That which unwomans it, abolishes
The nature of the woman,—impudence.
Who contradicts me here? Concede me, then,
Whatever friendly fault may interpose
To save the sex from self-abolishment
Is three-parts on the way to virtue's rank!
And, what is taxed here as duplicity,
Feint, wile and trick,—admitted for the nonce,—
What worse do one and all than interpose,
Hold, as it were, a deprecating hand,
Statuesquely, in the Medicean mode,
Before some shame which modesty would veil?
Who blames the gesture prettily perverse?
Thus,—lest ye miss a point illustrative,—
Admit the husband's calumny—allow
That the wife, having penned the epistle fraught
With horrors, charge on charge of crime she heaped
O' the head of Pietro and Violante—(still
Presumed her parents)—having despatched the same
To their arch-enemy Paolo, through free choice
And no sort of compulsion in the world—
Put case she next discards simplicity
For craft, denies the voluntary act,
Declares herself a passive instrument
I' the husband's hands; that, duped by knavery,
She traced the characters she could not write,
And took on trust the unread sense which, read,
And recognized were to be spurned at once:
Allow this calumny, I reiterate!
Who is so dull as wonder at the pose
Of our Pompilia in the circumstance?
Who sees not that the too-ingenuous soul,
Repugnant even at a duty done
Which brought beneath too scrutinizing glare
The misdemeanours,—buried in the dark,—
Of the authors of her being, as believed,—
Stung to the quick at her impulsive deed,
And willing to repair what harm it worked,
She—wise in this beyond what Nero proved,
Who when folk urged the candid juvenile
To sign the warrant, doom the guilty dead,
"Would I had never learned to write," quoth he!
—Pompilia rose above the Roman, cried
"To read or write I never learned at all!"
O splendidly mendacious!

But time fleets:
Let us not linger: hurry to the end,
Since flight does end and that, disastrously.
Beware ye blame desert for unsuccess,
Disparage each expedient else to praise,
Call failure folly! Man's best effort fails.
After ten years' resistance Troy succumbed:
Could valour save a town, Troy still had stood.
Pompilia came off halting in no point
Of courage, conduct, her long journey through:
But nature sank exhausted at the close,
And as I said, she swooned and slept all night.
Morn breaks and brings the husband: we assist
At the spectacle. Discovery succeeds.
Ha, how is this? What moonstruck rage is here?
Though we confess to partial frailty now,
To error in a woman and a wife,
Is 't by the rough way she shall be reclaimed?
Who bursts upon her chambered privacy?
What crowd profanes the chaste cubiculum?
What outcries and lewd laughter, scurril gibe
And ribald jest to scare the ministrant
Good angels that commerce with souls in sleep?
Why, had the worst crowned Guido to his wish,
Confirmed his most irrational surmise,
Yet there be bounds to man's emotion, checks
To an immoderate astonishment.
'T is decent horror, regulated wrath,
Befit our dispensation: have we back
The old Pagan license? Shall a Vulcan clap
His net o' the sudden and expose the pair
To the unquenchable universal mirth?
A feat, antiquity saw scandal in
So clearly, that the nauseous tale thereof—
Demodocus his nugatory song—
Hath ever been concluded modern stuff
Impossible to the mouth of the grave Muse,
So, foisted into that Eighth Odyssey
By some impertinent pickthank. O thou fool,
Count Guido Franceschini, what didst gain
By publishing thy secret to the world?
Were all the precepts of the wise a waste—
Bred in thee not one touch of reverence?
Admit thy wife—admonish we the fool,—
Were falseness' self, why chronicle thy shame?
Much rather should thy teeth bite out thy tongue,
Dumb lip consort with desecrated brow,
Silence become historiographer,
And thou—thine own Cornelius Tacitus!
But virtue, barred, still leaps the barrier, lords!
—Still, moon-like, penetrates the encroaching mist
And bursts, all broad and bare, on night, ye know!
Surprised, then, in the garb of truth, perhaps,
Pompilia, thus opposed, breaks obstacle,
Springs to her feet, and stands Thalassian-pure,
Confronts the foe,—nay, catches at his sword
And tries to kill the intruder, he complains.
Why, so she gave her lord his lesson back,
Crowned him, this time, the virtuous woman's way,
With an exact obedience; he brought sword,
She drew the same, since swords are meant to draw.
Tell not me 't is sharp play with tools on edge!
It was the husband chose the weapon here.
Why did not he inaugurate the game
With some gentility of apophthegm
Still pregnant on the philosophic page,
Some captivating cadence still a-lisp
O' the poet's lyre? Such spells subdue the surge,
Make tame the tempest, much more mitigate
The passions of the mind, and probably
Had moved Pompilia to a smiling blush.
No, he must needs prefer the argument
O' the blow: and she obeyed, in duty bound,
Returned him buffet ratiocinative—
Ay, in the reasoner's own interest,
For wife must follow whither husband leads,
Vindicate honour as himself prescribes,
Save him the very way himself bids save!
No question but who jumps into a quag
Should stretch forth hand and pray us "Pull me out
"By the hand!" such were the customary cry:
But Guido pleased to bid "Leave hand alone!
"Join both feet, rather, jump upon my head:
"I extricate myself by the rebound!"
And dutifully as enjoined she jumped—
Drew his own sword and menaced his own life,
Anything to content a wilful spouse.

And so he was contented—one must do
Justice to the expedient which succeeds,
Strange as it seem: at flourish of the blade,
The crowd drew back, stood breathless and abashed,
Then murmured "This should be no wanton wife,
"No conscience-stricken sinner, caught i' the act,
"And patiently awaiting our first stone:
"But a poor hard-pressed all-bewildered thing,
"Has rushed so far, misguidedly perhaps,
"Meaning no more harm than a frightened sheep.
"She sought for aid; and if she made mistake
"I' the man could aid most, why—so mortals do:
"Even the blessed Magdalen mistook
"Far less forgiveably: consult the place—
"Supposing him to be the gardener,
"'Sir,' said she, and so following." Why more words?
Forthwith the wife is pronounced innocent:
What would the husband more than gain his cause,
And find that honour flash in the world's eye,
His apprehension was lest soil had smirched?

So, happily the adventure comes to close
Whereon my fat opponent grounds his charge
Preposterous: at mid-day he groans "How dark!"
Listen to me, thou Archangelic swine!
Where is the ambiguity to blame,
The flaw to find in our Pompilia? Safe
She stands, see! Does thy comment follow quick
"Safe, inasmuch as at the end proposed;
"But thither she picked way by devious path—
"Stands dirtied, no dubiety at all!
"I recognize success, yet, all the same,
"Importunately will suggestion prompt—
"Better Pompilia gained the right to boast
"'No devious path, no doubtful patch was mine,
"'I saved my head nor sacrificed my foot:'
"Why, being in a peril, show mistrust
"Of the angels set to guard the innocent?
"Why rather hold by obvious vulgar help
"Of stratagem and subterfuge, excused
"Somewhat, but still no less a foil, a fault,
"Since low with high, and good with bad is linked?
"Methinks I view some ancient bas-relief.
"There stands Hesione thrust out by Troy,
"Her father's hand has chained her to a crag,
"Her mother's from the virgin plucked the vest,
"At a safe distance both distressful watch,
"While near and nearer comes the snorting orc.
"I look that, white and perfect to the end,
"She wait till Jove despatch some demigod;
"Not that,—impatient of celestial club
"Alcmena's son should brandish at the beast,—
'She daub, disguise her dainty limbs with pitch,
"And so elude the purblind monster! Ay,
"The trick succeeds, but 't is an ugly trick,
"Where needs have been no trick!"

My answer? Faugh;
Nimis incongrue! Too absurdly put!
Sententiam ego teneo contrariam,
Trick, I maintain, had no alternative.
The heavens were bound with brass,—Jove far at feast
(No feast like that thou didst not ask me to,
Arcangeli,—I heard of thy regale!)
With the unblamed Æthiop,—Hercules spun wool
I' the lap of Omphale, while Virtue shrieked—
The brute came paddling all the faster. You
Of Troy, who stood at distance, where's the aid
You offered in the extremity? Most and least,
Gentle and simple, here the Governor,
There the Archbishop, everywhere the friends,
Shook heads and waited for a miracle,
Or went their way, left Virtue to her fate.
Just this one rough and ready man leapt forth!
—Was found, sole anti-Fabius (dare I say)
Who restored things, with no delay at all,
Qui haud cunctando rem restituit! He,
He only, Caponsacchi 'mid a crowd,
Caught Virtue up, carried Pompilia off
Through gaping impotence of sympathy
In ranged Arezzo: what you take for pitch,
Is nothing worse, belike, than black and blue,
Mere evanescent proof that hardy hands
Did yeoman's service, cared not where the gripe
Was more than duly energetic: bruised,
She smarts a little, but her bones are saved
A fracture, and her skin will soon show sleek.
How it disgusts when weakness, false-refined,
Censures the honest rude effective strength,—
When sickly dreamers of the impossible
Decry plain sturdiness which does the feat
With eyes wide open!

Did occasion serve,
I could illustrate, if my lords allow;
Quid vetat, what forbids I aptly ask
With Horace, that I give my anger vent,
While I let breathe, no less, and recreate,
The gravity of my Judges, by a tale?
A case in point—what though an apologue
Graced by tradition?—possibly a fact:
Tradition must precede all scripture, words
Serve as our warrant ere our books can be:
So, to tradition back we needs must go
For any fact's authority: and this
Hath lived so far (like jewel hid in muck)
On page of that old lying vanity
Called "Sepher Toldoth Yeschu:" God be praised,
I read no Hebrew,—take the thing on trust:
But I believe the writer meant no good
(Blind as he was to truth in some respects)
To our pestiferous and schismatic … well,
My lords' conjecture be the touchstone, show
The thing for what it is! The author lacks
Discretion, and his zeal exceeds: but zeal,—
How rare in our degenerate day! Enough!
Here is the story: fear not, I shall chop
And change a little, else my Jew would press
All too unmannerly before the Court.

It happened once,—begins this foolish Jew,
Pretending to write Christian history,—
That three, held greatest, best and worst of men,
Peter and John and Judas, spent a day
In toil and travel through the country-side
On some sufficient business—I suspect,
Suppression of some Molinism i' the bud.
Foot-sore and hungry, dropping with fatigue,
They reached by nightfall a poor lonely grange,
Hostel or inn: so, knocked and entered there.
"Your pleasure, great ones?"—"Shelter, rest and food!"
For shelter, there was one bare room above;
For rest therein, three beds of bundled straw:
For food, one wretched starveling fowl, no more—
Meat for one mouth, but mockery for three.
"You have my utmost." How should supper serve?
Peter broke silence: "To the spit with fowl!
"And while 't is cooking, sleep!—since beds there be,
"And, so far, satisfaction of a want.
"Sleep we an hour, awake at supper-time,
"Then each of us narrate the dream he had,
"And he whose dream shall prove the happiest, point
"The clearliest out the dreamer as ordained
"Beyond his fellows to receive the fowl,
"Him let our shares be cheerful tribute to,
"His the entire meal, may it do him good!"
Who could dispute so plain a consequence?
So said, so done: each hurried to his straw,
Slept his hour's sleep and dreamed his dream, and woke.
"I," commenced John, "dreamed that I gained the prize
"We all aspire to: the proud place was mine,
"Throughout the earth and to the end of time
"I was the Loved Disciple: mine the meal!"
"But I," proceeded Peter, "dreamed, a word
"Gave me the headship of our company,
"Made me the Vicar and Vice-gerent, gave
"The keys of heaven and hell into my hand,
"And o'er the earth, dominion: mine the meal!"
"While I," submitted in soft under-tone
The Iscariot—sense of his unworthiness
Turning each eye up to the inmost white—
With long-drawn sigh, yet letting both lips smack,
"I have had just the pitifullest dream
"That ever proved man meanest of his mates,
"And born foot-washer and foot-wiper, nay
"Foot-kisser to each comrade of you all!
"I dreamed I dreamed; and in that mimic dream
"(Impalpable to dream as dream to fact)
"Methought I meanly chose to sleep no wink
"But wait until I heard my brethren snore;
"Then stole from couch, slipped noiseless o'er the planks,
"Slid downstairs, furtively approached the hearth,
"Found the fowl duly brown, both back and breast,
"Hissing in harmony with the cricket's chirp,
"Grilled to a point; said no grace but fell to,
"Nor finished till the skeleton lay bare.
"In penitence for which ignoble dream,
"Lo, I renounce my portion cheerfully!
"Fie on the flesh—be mine the ethereal gust,
"And yours the sublunary sustenance!
"See that whate'er be left ye give the poor!"
Down the two scuttled, one on other's heel,
Stung by a fell surmise; and found, alack,
A goodly savour, both the drumstick bones,
And that which henceforth took the appropriate name
O' the Merry-thought, in memory of the fact
That to keep wide awake is man's best dream.

So,—as was said once of Thucydides
And his sole joke, "The lion, lo, hath laughed!"—
Just so, the Governor and all that's great
I' the city, never meant that Innocence
Should quite starve while Authority sat at meat;
They meant to fling a bone at banquet's end:
Wished well to our Pompilia—in their dreams,
Nor bore the secular sword in vain—asleep.
Just so the Archbishop and all good like him
Went to bed meaning to pour oil and wine
I' the wounds of her, next day,—but long ere day,
They had burned the one and drunk the other, while
Just so, again, contrariwise, the priest
Sustained poor Nature in extremity
By stuffing barley-bread into her mouth,
Saving Pompilia (grant the parallel)
By the plain homely and straightforward way
Taught him by common sense. Let others shriek
"Oh what refined expedients did we dream
"Proved us the only fit to help the fair!"
He cried "A carriage waits, jump in with me!"

And now, this application pardoned, lords,—
This recreative pause and breathing-while,—
Back to beseemingness and gravity!
For Law steps in: Guido appeals to Law,
Demands she arbitrate,—does well for once.
O Law, of thee how neatly was it said
By that old Sophocles, thou hast thy seat
I' the very breast of Jove, no meanlier throned!
Here is a piece of work now, hitherto
Begun and carried on, concluded near,
Without an eye-glance cast thy sceptre's way;
And, lo the stumbling and discomfiture!
Well may you call them "lawless" means, men take
To extricate themselves through mother-wit
When tangled haply in the toils of life!
Guido would try conclusions with his foe,
Whoe'er the foe was and whate'er the offence;
He would recover certain dowry-dues:
Instead of asking Law to lend a hand,
What pother of sword drawn and pistol cocked,
What peddling with forged letters and paid spies,
Politic circumvention!—all to end
As it began—by loss of the fool's head,
First in a figure, presently in a fact.
It is a lesson to mankind at large.
How other were the end, would men be sage
And bear confidingly each quarrel straight,
O Law, to thy recipient mother-knees!
How would the children light come and prompt go,
This with a red-cheeked apple for reward,
The other, peradventure red-cheeked too
I' the rear, by taste of birch for punishment.
No foolish brawling murder any more!
Peace for the household, practise for the Fisc,
And plenty for the exchequer of my lords!
Too much to hope, in this world: in the next,
Who knows? Since, why should sit the Twelve enthroned
To judge the tribes, unless the tribes be judged?
And 't is impossible but offences come:
So, all's one lawsuit, all one long leet-day!

Forgive me this digression—that I stand
Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak
O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade
"Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear,
"And let Law listen to thy difference!"
And Law does listen and compose the strife,
Settle the suit, how wisely and how well!
On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,
Law bends a brow maternally severe,
Implies the worth of perfect chastity,
By fancying the flaw she cannot find.
Superfluous sifting snow, nor helps nor harms:
'T is safe to censure levity in youth,
Tax womanhood with indiscretion, sure!
Since toys, permissible to-day, become
Follies to-morrow: prattle shocks in church:
And that curt skirt which lets a maiden skip,
The matron changes for a trailing robe.
Mothers may aim a blow with half-shut eyes
Nodding above their spindles by the fire,
And chance to hit some hidden fault, else safe.
Just so, Law hazarded a punishment—
If applicable to the circumstance,
Why, well! if not so apposite, well too.
"Quit the gay range o' the world," I hear her cry,
"Enter, in lieu, the penitential pound:
"Exchange the gauds of pomp for ashes, dust!
"Leave each mollitious haunt of luxury!
"The golden-garnished silken-couched alcove,
"The many-columned terrace that so tempts
"Feminine soul put foot forth, extend ear
"To fluttering joy of lover's serenade,—
"Leave these for cellular seclusion! mask
"And dance no more, but fast and pray! avaunt—
"Be burned, thy wicked townsman's sonnet-book!
"Welcome, mild hymnal by … some better scribe!
"For the warm arms were wont enfold thy flesh,
"Let wire-shirt plough and whipcord discipline!"
If such an exhortation proved, perchance,
Inapplicable, words bestowed in waste,
What harm, since Law has store, can spend nor miss?

And so, our paragon submits herself,
Goes at command into the holy house,
And, also at command, comes out again:
For, could the effect of such obedience prove
Too certain, too immediate? Being healed,
Go blaze abroad the matter, blessed one!
Art thou sound forthwith? Speedily vacate
The step by pool-side, leave Bethesda free
To patients plentifully posted round,
Since the whole need not the physician! Brief,
She may betake her to her parents' place.
Welcome her, father, with wide arms once more,
Motion her, mother, to thy breast again!
For why? Since Law relinquishes the charge,
Grants to your dwelling-place a prison's style,
Rejoice you with Pompilia! golden days,
Redeunt Saturnia regna. Six weeks slip,
And she is domiciled in house and home
As though she thence had never budged at all.
And thither let the husband,—joyous, ay,
But contrite also—quick betake himself,
Proud that his dove which lay among the pots
Hath mued those dingy feathers,—moulted now,
Shows silver bosom clothed with yellow gold!
So shall he tempt her to the perch she fled,
Bid to domestic bliss the truant back.

But let him not delay! Time fleets how fast,
And opportunity, the irrevocable,
Once flown will flout him! Is the furrow traced?
If field with corn ye fail preoccupy,
Darnel for wheat and thistle-beards for grain,
Infelix lolium, carduus horridus,
Will grow apace in combination prompt,
Defraud the husbandman of his desire.
Already—hist—what murmurs 'monish now
The laggard?—doubtful, nay, fantastic bruit
Of such an apparition, such return
Interdum, to anticipate the spouse,
Of Caponsacchi's very self! 'T is said,
When nights are lone and company is rare,
His visitations brighten winter up.
If so they did—which nowise I believe—
(How can I?—proof abounding that the priest,
Once fairly at his relegation-place,
Never once left it) still, admit he stole
A midnight march, would fain see friend again,
Find matter for instruction in the past,
Renew the old adventure in such chat
As cheers a fireside! He was lonely too,
He, too, must need his recreative hour.
Shall it amaze the philosophic mind
If he, long wont the empurpled cup to quaff,
Have feminine society at will,
Being debarred abruptly from all drink
Save at the spring which Adam used for wine,
Dreads harm to just the health he hoped to guard,
And, trying abstinence, gains malady?
Ask Tozzi, now physician to the Pope!
"Little by little break"—(I hear he bids
Master Arcangeli my antagonist,
Who loves good cheer, and may indulge too much:
So I explain the logic of the plea
Wherewith he opened our proceedings late)—
"Little by little break a habit, Don,
"Become necessity to feeble flesh!"
And thus, nocturnal taste of intercourse
(Which never happened,—but, suppose it did)
May have been used to dishabituate
By sip and sip this drainer to the dregs
O' the draught of conversation,—heady stuff,
Brewage which, broached, it took two days and nights
To properly discuss i' the journey, Sirs!
Such power has second-nature, men call use,
That undelightful objects get to charm
Instead of chafe: the daily colocynth
Tickles the palate by repeated dose,
Old sores scratch kindly, the ass makes a push
Although the mill-yoke-wound be smarting yet,
For mill-door bolted on a holiday:
Nor must we marvel here if impulse urge
To talk the old story over now and then,
The hopes and fears, the stoppage and the haste,—
Subjects of colloquy to surfeit once.
"Here did you bid me twine a rosy wreath!"
"And there you paid my lips a compliment!"
"Here you admired the tower could be so tall!"
"And there you likened that of Lebanon
"To the nose of the beloved!" Trifles! still,
"Forsan et hæc olim,"—such trifles serve
To make the minutes pass in winter-time.

Husband, return then, I re-counsel thee!
For, finally, of all glad circumstance
Should make a prompt return imperative,
What in the world awaits thee, dost suppose?
O' the sudden, as good gifts are wont befall,
What is the hap of our unconscious Count?
That which lights bonfire and sets cask a-tilt,
Dissolves the stubborn'st heart in jollity.
O admirable, there is born a babe,
A son, an heir, a Franceschini last
And best o' the stock! Pompilia, thine the palm!
Repaying incredulity with faith,
Ungenerous thrift of each marital debt
With bounty in profuse expenditure,
Pompilia scorns to have the old year end
Without a present shall ring in the new—
Bestows on her too-parsimonious lord
An infant for the apple of his eye,
Core of his heart, and crown completing life,
True summum bonum of the earthly lot!
"We," saith ingeniously the sage, "are born
"Solely that others may be born of us."
So, father, take thy child, for thine that child,
Oh nothing doubt! In wedlock born, law holds
Baseness impossible: since "filius est
"Quem nuptiæ demonstrant," twits the text
Whoever dares to doubt.

Yet doubt he dares!
O faith, where art thou flown from out the world?
Already on what an age of doubt we fall!
Instead of each disputing for the prize,
The babe is bandied here from that to this.
Whose the babe? "Cujum pecus?" Guido's lamb?
"An Meliboei?" Nay, but of the priest!
"Non sed Ægonis!" Someone must be sire:
And who shall say, in such a puzzling strait,
If there were not vouchsafed some miracle
To the wife who had been harassed and abused
More than enough by Guido's family
For non-production of the promised fruit
Of marriage? What if Nature, I demand,
Touched to the quick by taunts upon her sloth,
Had roused herself, put forth recondite power,
Bestowed this birth to vindicate her sway,
Like the strange favour, Maro memorized
As granted Aristæus when his hive
Lay empty of the swarm? not one more bee—
Not one more babe to Franceschini's house!
And lo, a new birth filled the air with joy,
Sprung from the bowels of the generous steer,
A novel son and heir rejoiced the Count!
Spontaneous generation, need I prove
Were facile feat to Nature at a pinch?
Let whoso doubts, steep horsehair certain weeks
In water, there will be produced a snake;
Spontaneous product of the horse, which horse
Happens to be the representative—
Now that I think on't—of Arezzo's self,
The very city our conception blessed:
Is not a prancing horse the City-arms?
What sane eye fails to see coincidence?
Cur ego, boast thou, my Pompilia, then,
Desperem fieri sine conjuge
Mater—how well the Ovidian distich suits!—
Et parere intacto dummodo
Casta viro? Such miracle was wrought!
Note, further, as to mark the prodigy,
The babe in question neither took the name
Of Guido, from the sire presumptive, nor
Giuseppe, from the sire potential, but
Gaetano—last saint of our hierarchy,
And newest namer for a thing so new!
What other motive could have prompted choice?

Therefore be peace again: exult, ye hills!
Ye vales rejoicingly break forth in song!
Incipe, parve puer, begin, small boy,
Risu cognoscere patrem, with a laugh
To recognize thy parent! Nor do thou
Boggle, oh parent, to return the grace!
Nec anceps hære, pater, puero
Cognoscendo—one may well eke out the prayer!
In vain! The perverse Guido doubts his eyes,
Distrusts assurance, lets the devil drive.
Because his house is swept and garnished now,
He, having summoned seven like himself,
Must hurry thither, knock and enter in,
And make the last worse than the first, indeed!
Is he content? We are. No further blame
O' the man and murder! They were stigmatized
Befittingly: the Court heard long ago
My mind o' the matter, which, outpouring full,
Has long since swept like surge, i' the simile
Of Homer, overborne both dyke and dam,
And whelmed alike client and advocate:
His fate is sealed, his life as good as gone,
On him I am not tempted to waste word.
Yet though my purpose holds,—which was and is
And solely shall be to the very end,
To draw the true effigies of a saint,
Do justice to perfection in the sex,—
Yet let not some gross pamperer of the flesh
And niggard in the spirit's nourishment,
Whose feeding hath offuscated his wit
Rather than law,—he never had, to lose—
Let not such advocate object to me
I leave my proper function of attack!
"What 's this to Bacchus?"—(in the classic phrase,
Well used, for once) he hiccups probably.
O Advocate o' the Poor, thou born to make
Their blessing void—beati pauperes!
By painting saintship I depicture sin:
Beside my pearl, I prove how black thy jet,
And, through Pompilia's virtue, Guido's crime.

Back to her, then,—with but one beauty more,
End we our argument,—one crowning grace
Pre-eminent 'mid agony and death.
For to the last Pompilia played her part,
Used the right means to the permissible end,
And, wily as an eel that stirs the mud
Thick overhead, so baffling spearman's thrust,
She, while he stabbed her, simulated death,
Delayed, for his sake, the catastrophe,
Obtained herself a respite, four days' grace,
Whereby she told her story to the world,
Enabled me to make the present speech,
And, by a full confession, saved her soul.

Yet hold, even here would malice leer its last,
Gurgle its choked remonstrance: snake, hiss free!
Oh, that 's the objection? And to whom?—not her
But me, forsooth—as, in the very act
Of both confession and (what followed close)
Subsequent talk, chatter and gossipry,
Babble to sympathizing he and she
Whoever chose besiege her dying bed,—
As this were found at variance with my tale,
Falsified all I have adduced for truth,
Admitted not one peccadillo here,
Pretended to perfection, first and last,
O' the whole procedure—perfect in the end,
Perfect i' the means, perfect in everything,
Leaving a lawyer nothing to excuse,
Reason away and show his skill about!
—A flight, impossible to Adamic flesh,
Just to be fancied, scarcely to be wished,
And, anyhow, unpleadable in court!
"How reconcile," gasps Malice, "that with this?"

Your "this," friend, is extraneous to the law,
Comes of men's outside meddling, the unskilled
Interposition of such fools as press
Out of their province. Must I speak my mind?
Far better had Pompilia died o' the spot
Than found a tongue to wag and shame the law,
Shame most of all herself,—could friendship fail
And advocacy lie less on the alert:
But no, they shall protect her to the end!
Do I credit the alleged narration? No!
Lied our Pompilia then, to laud herself?
Still, no! Clear up what seems discrepancy?
The means abound: art 's long, though time is short;
So, keeping me in compass, all I urge
Is—since, confession at the point of death,
Nam in articulo mortis, with the Church
Passes for statement honest and sincere,
Nemo presumitur reus esse,—then,
If sure that all affirmed would be believed,
'T was charity, in her so circumstanced,
To spend the last breath in one effort more
For universal good of friend and foe:
And,—by pretending utter innocence,
Nay, freedom from each foible we forgive,—
Re-integrate—not solely her own fame,
But do the like kind office for the priest
Whom telling the crude truth about might vex,
Haply expose to peril, abbreviate
Indeed the long career of usefulness
Presumably before him: while her lord,
Whose fleeting life is forfeit to the law,—
What mercy to the culprit if, by just
The gift of such a full certificate
Of his immitigable guiltiness,
She stifled in him the absurd conceit
Of murder as it were a mere revenge
—Stopped confirmation of that jealousy
Which, did she but acknowledge the first flaw,
The faintest foible, had emboldened him
To battle with the charge, baulk penitence,
Bar preparation for impending fate!
Whereas, persuade him that he slew a saint
Who sinned not even where she may have sinned,
You urge him all the brisklier to repent
Of most and least and aught and everything!
Still, if this view of mine content you not,
Lords, nor excuse the genial falsehood here,
We come to our Triarii, last resource:
We fall back on the inexpugnable,
Submitting,—she confessed before she talked!
The sacrament obliterates the sin:
What is not,—was not, therefore, in a sense.
Let Molinists distinguish, "Souls washed white
"But red once, still show pinkish to the eye!"
We say, abolishment is nothingness,
And nothingness has neither head nor tail,
End nor beginning! Better estimate
Exorbitantly, than disparage aught
Of the efficacity of the act, I hope!
Solvuntur tabulæ? May we laugh and go?
Well,—not before (in filial gratitude
To Law, who, mighty mother, waves adieu)
We take on us to vindicate Law's self!
For,—yea, Sirs,—curb the start, curtail the stare!—
Remains that we apologize for haste
I' the Law, our lady who here bristles up
"Blame my procedure? Could the Court mistake?
"(Which were indeed a misery to think)
"Did not my sentence in the former stage
"O' the business bear a title plain enough?
"Decretum"—I translate it word for word—
"'Decreed: the priest, for his complicity
"'I' the flight and deviation of the dame,
"'As well as for unlawful intercourse,
"'Is banished three years: crime and penalty,
"Declared alike. If he be taxed with guilt,
"How can you call Pompilia innocent?
"If both be innocent, have I been just?"

Gently, O mother, judge men—whose mistake
Is in the mere misapprehensiveness!
The Titulus a-top of your decree
Was but to ticket there the kind of charge
You in good time would arbitrate upon.
Title is one thing,—arbitration's self,
Probatio, quite another possibly.
Subsistit, there holds good the old response,
Responsio tradita, we must not stick,
Quod non sit attendendus Titulus,
To the Title, sed Probatio, but the Proof,
Resultans ex processu, the result
O' the Trial, and the style of punishment,
Et poena per sententiam imposita.
All is tentative, till the sentence come:
An indication of what men expect,
But nowise an assurance they shall find.
Lords, what if we permissibly relax
The tense bow, as the law-god Phoebus bids,
Relieve our gravity at labour's close?
I traverse Rome, feel thirsty, need a draught,
Look for a wine-shop, find it by the bough
Projecting as to say "Here wine is sold!"
So much I know,—"sold:" but what sort of wine?
Strong, weak, sweet, sour, home-made or foreign drink?
That much must I discover by myself.
"Wine is sold," quoth the bough, "but good or bad,
"Find, and inform us when you smack your lips!"
Exactly so, Law hangs her title forth,
To show she entertains you with such case
About such crime. Come in! she pours, you quaff.
You find the Priest good liquor in the main,
But heady and provocative of brawls:
Remand the residue to flask once more,
Lay it low where it may deposit lees,
I' the cellar: thence produce it presently,
Three years the brighter and the better!

Thus,
Law's son, have I bestowed my filial help,
And thus I end, tenax proposito;
Point to point as I purposed have I drawn
Pompilia, and implied as terribly
Guido: so, gazing, let the world crown Law—
Able once more, despite my impotence,
And helped by the acumen of the Court,
To eliminate, display, make triumph truth!
What other prize than truth were worth the pains?

There's my oration—much exceeds in length
That famed panegyric of Isocrates,
They say it took him fifteen years to pen.
But all those ancients could say anything!
He put in just what rushed into his head:
While I shall have to prune and pare and print.
This comes of being born in modern times
With priests for auditory. Still, it pays.

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Joconde

IN Lombardy's fair land, in days of yore,
Once dwelt a prince, of youthful charms, a store;
Each FAIR, with anxious look, his favours sought,
And ev'ry heart within his net was caught.
Quite proud of beauteous form and smart address,
In which the world was led to acquiesce,
He cried one day, while ALL attention paid,
I'll bet a million, Nature never made
Beneath the sun, another man like me,
Whose symmetry with mine can well agree.
If such exist, and here will come, I swear
I'll show him ev'ry lib'ral princely care.

A noble Roman, who the challenge heard,
This answer gave the king his soul preferr'd
--Great prince, if you would see a handsome man,
To have my brother here should be your plan;
A frame more perfect Nature never gave;
But this to prove, your courtly dames I crave;
May judge the fact, when I'm convinc'd they'll find:
Like you, the youth will please all womankind;
And since so many sweets at once may cloy,
'Twere well to have a partner in your joy.

THE king, surpris'd, expressed a wish to view
This brother, form'd by lines so very true;
We'll see, said he, if here his charms divine
Attract the heart of ev'ry nymph, like mine;
And should success attend our am'rous lord,
To you, my friend, full credit we'll accord.

AWAY the Roman flew, Joconde to get,
(So nam'd was he in whom these features met
'Midst woods and lawns, retir'd from city strife,
And lately wedded to a beauteous wife;
If bless'd, I know not; but with such a fair,
On him must rest the folly to despair.

THE Roman courtier came, his business told
The brilliant offers from the monarch bold;
His mission had success, but still the youth
Distraction felt, which 'gan to shake his truth;
A pow'rful monarch's favour there he view'd;
A partner here, with melting tears bedew'd;
And while he wavered on the painful choice,
She thus address'd her spouse with plaintive voice:

CAN you, Joconde, so truly cruel prove,
To quit my fervent love in courts to move?
The promises of kings are airy dreams,
And scarcely last beyond the day's extremes
By watchful, anxious care alone retain'd,
And lost, through mere caprice, as soon as gain'd.
If weary of my charms, alas! you feel,
Still think, my love, what joys these woods conceal;
Here dwell around tranquillity and ease;
The streams' soft murmurs, and the balmy breeze,
Invite to sleep; these vales where breathe the doves,
All, all, my dear Joconde, renew our loves;
You laugh!--Ah! cruel, go, expose thy charms,
Grim death will quickly spare me these alarms!

JOCONDE'S reply our records ne'er relate,
Nor what he did, nor how he left his mate;
And since contemp'raries decline the task;
'Twere folly, such details of me to ask.
We're told, howe'er, when ready to depart,
With flowing tears she press'd him to her heart;
And on his arm a brilliant bracelet plac'd,
With hair around her picture nicely trac'd;
This guard in full remembrance of my love,
She cried;--then clasped her hands to pow'rs above.

TO see such dire distress, and poignant grief,
Might lead to think, soon death would bring relief;
But I, who know full well the female mind,
At best oft doubt affliction of the kind.

JOCONDE set out at length; but that same morn;
As on he mov'd, his soul with anguish torn,
He found the picture he had quite forgot,
Then turn'd his steed, and back began to trot.
While musing what excuse to make his mate,
At home he soon arriv'd, and op'd the gate;
Alighted unobserv'd, ran up the stairs;
And ent'ring to the lady unawares,
He found this darling rib, so full of charms;
Intwin'd within a valet's brawny arms!

'MIDST first emotions of the husband's ire;
To stab them while asleep he felt desire;
Howe'er, he nothing did; the courteous wight;
In this dilemma, clearly acted right;
The less of such misfortunes said is best;
'Twere well the soul of feeling to divest;
Their lives, through pity, or prudential care;
With much reluctance, he was led to spare;
Asleep he left the pair, for if awake,
In honour, he a diff'rent step would take.--
Had any smart gallant supplied my place,
Said he, I might put up with this disgrace;
But naught consoles the thought of such a beast;
Dan Cupid wantons, or is blind at least;
A bet, or some such whim, induc'd the god,
To give his sanction to amours so odd.

THIS perfidy Joconde so much dismay'd;
His spirits droop'd, his lilies 'gan to fade;
No more he look'd the charmer he had been;
And when the court's gay dames his face had seen;
They cried, Is this the beauty, we were told,
Would captivate each heart, or young or old?
Why, he's the jaundice; ev'ry view displays
The mien of one,--just fasted forty days!

WITH secret pleasure, this, Astolphus learn'd;
The Roman, for his brother, risks discern'd,
Whose secret griefs were carefully conceal'd,
(And these Joconde could never wish reveal'd
Yet, spite of gloomy looks and hollow eyes,
His graceful features pierc'd the wan disguise,
Which fail'd to please, alone through want of life,
Destroy'd by thinking on a guilty wife.

THE god of love, in pity to our swain,
At last revok'd BLACK CARE'S corroding reign;
For, doubtless, in his views he oft was cross'd,
While such a lover to the world was lost.

THE hero of our tale, at length, we find
Was well rewarded: LOVE again proved kind;
For, musing as he walk'd alone one day,
And pass'd a gall'ry, (held a secret way,)
A voice in plaintive accents caught his ear,
And from the neighb'ring closet came, 'twas clear:
My dear Curtade, my only hope below,
In vain I love;--you colder, colder grow;
While round no fair can boast so fine a face,
And numbers wish they might supply thy place,
Whilst thou with some gay page prefer'st a bet,
Or game of dice with some low, vulgar set,
To meeting me alone; and when just now
To thee I sent, with rage thou knit'st thy brow,
And Dorimene, with ev'ry curse abus'd
Then played again, since better that amus'd,
And left me here, as if not worth a thought,
Or thou didst scorn what I so fondly sought.

ASTONISHMENT, at once, our Roman seiz'd;
But who's the fair that thus her bosom eas'd?
Or, who's the gay Adonis, form'd to bless?
You'd try a day, and not the secret guess,
The queen's the belle:--and, doubtless you will stare,
The king's own dwarf the idol of her care!

THE Roman saw a crevice in the wood,
Through which he took a peep from where he stood;
To Dorimene our lovers left the key,
Which she had dropt when lately forc'd to flee,
And this Joconde pick'd up, a lucky hit,
Since he could use it when he best thought fit.
It seems, said he, I'm not alone in name,
And since a prince so handsome is the same,
Although a valet has supplied my place,
Yet see, the queen prefers a dwarf's embrace.

THIS thought consol'd so well,--his youthful rays
Returned, and e'en excelled his former days;
And those who lately ridicul'd his charms,
Now anxious seem'd to revel in his arms
'Twas who could have him,--even prudes grew kind;--
By many belles Astolphus was resign'd;
Though still the king retain'd enough, 'twas seen;--
But now let us resume the dwarf and queen.

OUR Roman, having satisfied his eyes,
At length withdrew, confounded by surprise.
Who follows courts, must oft with care conceal,
And scarcely know what sight and ears reveal.

YET, by Joconde the king was lov'd so well,
What now he'd seen he greatly wish'd to tell;
But, since to princes full respect is due,
And what concerns them, howsoever true,
If thought displeasing, should not be dispos'd
In terms direct, but obviously dispos'd,
To catch the mind, Joconde at ease detail'd,
From days of yore to those he now bewail'd,
The names of emp'rors and of kings, whose brows,
By wily wives, were crown'd with leafless boughs!
And who, without repining, view'd their lot,
Nor bad made worse, but thought things best forgot.
E'en I, who now your majesty address,
Continued he, am sorry to confess,
The very day I left my native earth,

To wait upon a prince of royal birth,
Was forced t'acknowledge cuckoldom among
The gods who rule the matrimonial throng,
And sacrifice thereto with aching heart
Cornuted heads dire torments oft impart:

THE tale he then detail'd, that rais'd his spleen;
And what within the closet he had seen;
The king replied, I will not be so rude,
To question what so clearly you have view'd;
Yet, since 'twere better full belief to gain,
A glimpse of such a fact I should obtain,
Pray bring me thither; instantly our wight;
Astolphus led, where both his ears and sight
Full proof receiv'd, which struck the prince with awe;
Who stood amaz'd at what he heard and saw.
But soon reflection's all-convincing pow'r
Induced the king vexation to devour;
True courtier-like, who dire misfortunes braves,
Feels sprouting horns, yet smiles at fools and knaves:
Our wives, said he, a pretty trick have play'd,
And shamefully the marriage bed betray'd;
Let us the compliment return, my friend,
And round the country our amours extend;
But, in our plan the better to succeed,
Our names we'll change; no servants we shall need;--
For your relation I desire to pass,
So you'll true freedom use; then with a lass
We more at ease shall feel, more pleasure gain;
Than if attended by my usual train.

JOCONDE with joy the king's proposal heard;
On which the latter with his friend conferr'd;
Said he, 'twere surely right to have a book,
In which to place the names of those we hook,
The whole arrang'd according to their rank,
And I'll engage no page remains a blank,
But ere we leave the range of our design,
E'en scrup'lous dames shall to our wish incline,
Our persons handsome, with engaging air,
And sprightly, brilliant wit no trifling share,--
'Twere strange, possessing such engaging charms,
They should not tumble freely in our arms.

THE, baggage ready, and the paper-book,
our smart gallants the road together took,
But 'twould be vain to number their amours;
With beauties, Cupid favoured them by scores;
Blessed, if only seen by either swain,
And doubly bless'd who could attention gain:
Nor wife of alderman, nor wife of mayor,
Of justice, nor of governor was there,
Who did not anxiously desire her name
Might straight be entered in the book of fame!
Hearts, which before were thought as cold as ice,
Now warm'd at once and melted in a trice.

SOME infidel, I fancy, in my ear
Would whisper-probabilities, I fear,
Are rather wanting to support the fact;
However perfectly gallants may act,
To gain a heart requires full many a day
If more be requisite I cannot say;
'Tis not my plan to dupe or young or old,
But such to me, howe'er the tale is told,
And Ariosto never truth forsakes;
Yet, if at ev'ry step a writer takes,
He's closely question'd as to time and place,
He ne'er can end his work with easy grace.
To those, from whom just credence I receive,
Their tales I promise fully to believe.

AT length, when our advent'rers round had play'd,
And danc'd with ev'ry widow, wife, and maid,
The full blown lily and the tender rose,
Astolphus said, though clearly I suppose,
We can as many hearts securely link,
As e'er we like, yet better now, I think,
To stop a while in some delightful spot,
And that before satiety we've got;
For true it is, with love as with our meat;
If we, variety of dishes eat,
The doctors tell us inj'ry will ensue,
And too much raking none can well pursue.
Let us some pleasing fair-one then engage,
To serve us both:--enough she'll prove I'll wage.

JOCONDE at once replied, with all my heart,
And I a lady know who'll take the part;
She's beautiful; possesses store of wit;
And is the wife of one above a cit.

WITH such to meddle would be indiscreet,
Replied the king, more charms we often meet,
Beneath a chambermaid or laundress' dress,
Than any rich coquette can well possess.
Besides, with those, less form is oft requir'd,
While dames of quality must be admir'd;
Their whims complied with, though suspicions rise;
And ev'ry hour produces fresh surprise,
But this sweet charmer of inferior birth
A treasure proves; a source of bliss on earth.
No trouble she to carry here nor there;
No balls she visits, and requires no care;
The conquest easy, we may talk or not;
The only difficulty we have got,
Is how to find one, we may faithful view;
So let us choose a girl, to love quite new.

SINCE these, replied the YOUTH, your thoughts appear,
What think you of our landlord's daughter here?
That she's a perfect virgin I've no doubt,
Nor can we find a chaster round about;
Her very doll more innocent won't prove,
Than this sweet nymph design'd with us to move.

THE scheme our prince's approbation met;
The very girl, said he, I wish'd to get;
This night be our attack; and if her heart
Surrenders when our wishes we impart,
But one perplexity will then remain;
'Tis who her virgin favours shall obtain?
The honour 's all a whim, and I, as king,
At once assuredly should claim this thing:
The rest 'tis very easy to arrange;
As matters suit we presently can change.

IF ceremony 'twere, Joconde replied,
All cavil then we quickly could decide;
Precedence would no doubt with you remain:
But this is quite another case 'tis plain;
And equity demands that we agree,
By lot to settle which the man shall be.

THE noble youths no arguments would spare,
And each contended for the spoiler's care;
Howe'er Joconde obtained the lucky hit,
And first embrac'd this fancied dainty bit.

THE girl who was the noble rival's aim,
That ev'ning to the room for something came;
Our heroes gave her instantly a chair,
And lavished praises on her face and hair;
A diamond ring soon sparkled in her eyes;
Its pleasing pow'rs at sight obtain'd the prize.

THE bargain made, she, in the dead of night,
When silence reign'd and all was void of light,
With careful steps their anxious wish obey'd,
And 'tween them both, she presently was laid;
'Twas Paradise they thought, where all is nice,
And our young spark believ'd he broke the ice.

THE folly I forgive him;--'tis in vain
On this to reason--idle to complain;
The WISE have oft been dup'd it is confest,
And Solomon it seems among the rest.
But gay Joconde felt nothing of the kind,
A secret pleasure glow'd within his mind;
He thought Astolphus wond'rous bliss had missed,
And that himself alone the fair had kiss'd;
A clod howe'er, who liv'd within the place,
Had, prior to the Roman, her embrace.

THE soft amour extended through the night,
The girl was pleas'd, and all proceeded right;
The foll'wing night, the next, 'twas still the same;
Young Clod at length her coldness 'gan to blame;
And as he felt suspicious of the act,
He watch'd her steps and verified the fact:
A quarrel instantly between them rose;
Howe'er the fair, his anger to compose,
And favour not to lose, on honour vow'd,
That when the sparks were gone, and time allow'd,
She would oblige his craving, fierce desire;--
To which the village lad replied with ire:--
Pray what care I for any tavern guest,
Of either sex; to you I now protest,
If I be not indulg'd this very night,
I'll publish your amours in mere despite.

HOW can we manage it, replied the belle,
I'm quite distressed--indeed the truth to tell,
I've promis'd them this night to come again,
And if I fail, no doubt can then remain,
But I shall lose the ring, their pledg'd reward,
Which would, you know for me, be very hard.

TO you I wish the ring, replied young Clod,
But do they sleep in bed, or only nod?
Tell me, pray; oh, said she, they sleep most sound;
But then between them plac'd shall I be found,
And while the one amidst Love's frolicks sports,
The other quiet lies, or Morpheus courts.
On hearing this the rustick lad proposed,
To visit her when others' eyes were closed.
Oh! never risk it, quickly she replied;
'Twere folly to attempt it by their side.
He answer'd, never fear, but only leave
The door ajar, and me they'll not perceive.

THE door she left exactly as he said;
The spark arriv'd, and then approach'd the bed,
('Twas near the foot,) then 'tween the sheets he slid,
But God knows how he lay, or what he did.
Astolphus and Joconde ne'er smelt a rat,
Nor ever dreamt of what their girl was at,
At length when each had turn'd and op'd his eyes,
Continual movement fill'd him with surprise.
The monarch softly said:--why how is this?
My friend has eaten something, for in bliss,
He revels on, and truly much I fear,
His health will show, it may be bought too dear.

THIS very sentiment Joconde bethought;
But Clod a breathing moment having caught,
Resum'd his fun, and that so oft would seek:
He gratified his wishes for a week;
Then watching carefully, he found once more;
Our noble heroes had begun to snore,
On which he slyly took himself away,
The road he came, and ere 'twas break of day;
The girl soon follow'd, since she justly fear'd,
Still more fatigues:--so off she quickly steer'd,

AT length when both the nobles were awake;
Astolphus said, my friend you rest should take,
'Twere better till to-morrow keep in bed,
Since sleep, with such fatigues, of course has fled:
You talk at random, cried the Roman youth;
More rest I fancy you require in truth;
You've led a pretty life throughout the night;
I? said the king; why I was weary quite,
So long I waited; you no respite gave,
But wholly seem'd our little nymph t' enslave;
At length to try if I from rage could keep,
I turn'd my back once more, and went to sleep.
If you had willingly the belle resign'd,
I was, my friend, to take a turn inclin'd;
That had sufficed for me, since I, like you,
Perpetual motion never can pursue.

YOUR raillery, the Roman youth replied,
Quite disconcerted, pray now lay aside,
And talk of something else; you've fully shown,
That I'm your vassal, and since you are grown
So fond that you to keep the girl desire,
E'en wholly to yourself, why I'll retire;
Do with her what you please, and we shall see,
How long this furor will with you agree.

IT may, replied the king, for ever last,
If ev'ry night like this, I'm doom'd to fast.

SIRE, said Joconde, no longer let us thus,
In terms of playful raillery discuss;
Since such your pleasure, send me from your view;
On this the youthful monarch angry grew,
And many words between the friends arose;
The presence of the nymph Astolphus chose;
To her they said, between us judge, sweet fair,
And every thing was stated then with care.

THE girl with blushing cheeks before them kneel'd,
And the mysterious tale at once reveal'd.
Our heroes laugh'd; the treach'ry vile excus'd;
And gave the ring, which much delight diffus'd;
Together with a handsome sum of gold,
Which soon a husband in her train enroll'd,
Who, for a maid, the pretty fair-one took;
And then our heroes wand'ring pranks forsook,
With laurels cover'd, which in future times,
Will make them famous through the Western climes;
More glorious since, they only cost, we find,
Those sweet ATTENTIONS pleasing to the MIND.

So many conquests proud of having made,
And over full the BOOK of--those who'd play'd;
Said gay Astolphus we will now, my friend,
Return the shortest road and poaching end;
If false our mates, yet we'll console ourselves,
That many others have inconstant elves.
Perhaps, in things a change will be one day,
And only tender flames LOVE'S torch display;
But now it seems some evil star presides,
And Hymen's flock the devil surely rides.
Besides, vile fiends the universe pervade,
Whose constant aim is mortals to degrade,
And cheat us to our noses if they can,
(Hell's imps in human shape, disgrace to man!)
Perhaps these wretches have bewitch'd our wives,
And made us fancy errors in their lives.
Then let us like good citizens, our days
In future pass amidst domestick ways;
Our absence may indeed restore their hearts,
For jealousy oft virtuous truths imparts.

IN this Astolphus certainly believ'd;
The friends return'd, and kindly were receiv'd;
A little scolding first assail'd the ear;
But blissful kisses banish'd ev'ry fear.
To balls and banquets ALL themselves resigned;
Of dwarf or valet nothing more we find;
Each with his wife contentedly remained:--
'Tis thus alone true happiness is gained.

poem by La Fontaine
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Cooked Meat

When rice and milk and oranges and white icing
Do their best to make you happy;
I speak to you a moment for the luxury,
I snuggled into the armchair.
I stood up in it as a child of the room,
A kind of food yielded as a happy heap.
I saw that the cook had lost her situation,
The snatched meat would suffice as humans could.
“I wish, ” she said suddenly, “ we were on a sunny shore,
Where there can’t be any whooping-cough.”
I can see food for all those in this room,
And there is no cough waiting.