University of Virginia Library

TWO VOICES.

CONSCIENCE.
Soul, if the day were come
When thou must part the body's company,
What recompence, thinkest thou, of final doom
Hath the just God for thee?

SOUL.
In Recompence's scales
How shall I place in counterpoise aright
The faults wherein the finite creature fails
And goodness infinite?

CONSCIENCE.
Goodness there cannot be
That is not perfect-just. Put also in
Justice of God, in like infinity,
Then poise, and weigh the sin.

SOUL.
Justice is measured forth;
Therefore not infinite. That word, which fills
The wide ear, taken at what its sense is worth,
Avails—three syllables.

CONSCIENCE.
Thou touchest but detail
Of accident and quantity. Lay by
The canvassing of things collateral,
And give the main reply.

SOUL.
Of final doom? In truth
Nought know I final underneath the sun:
All things through all things permeate; and death
Is but new life begun.

CONSCIENCE.
Deem not, suspicious soul,
The question put for thy ensnaring plann'd:
Let be finality; and give thy whole
Thought to the thing in hand.

SOUL.
Of what avail were thought
Skilled but to marshal what the senses yield
Of comparable images, when brought,
Naked, so far a-field?

CONSCIENCE.
But, if a promised day
Clothe her afresh with new receptive eyes?—
And ears to hear what haply I shall say
Of certain memories?—

SOUL.
New senses may prepare
Of future judgments fresh material;
Till then, for aught beyond, as never there,
I answer not at all.

CONSCIENCE.
Thou ownest an earth's pole,
Yet thou nor other ever yet has been
There, to report of it: then wherefore, Soul,
Reject because unseen?

SOUL.
The things myself have known
Induce belief in others of their kind
Such as this thing thou namest. For these alone
Own I the judging mind.

CONSCIENCE.
Evade not, Soul; but give
Answer direct: bethink thyself, and say
What doom is that thou lookest to receive
At the accounting day?

SOUL.
Accounts from contract spring
Where bargaining equals on agreement fall:
What room exists for such a reckoning
Where one is all in all?

CONSCIENCE.
Soul, thou wouldst still dispute
With captious art on things beside the main
And substance of the matter that I moot:
Judge, and reply again.

SOUL.
For me to judge, and say
What God in justice should adjudge of me,
Makes me the judge of God. I put away
That fond impiety.

CONSCIENCE.
Prevaricating sprite,
Thou shalt no more in feats evasive glory;
No more with crafty doublings turn and slight
The interrogatory.
What feel'st thou?—

SOUL.
There indeed
Pinches the point I can no more refuse:
I feel—I feel—whatever be decreed,
I much shall need excuse.