 | The Solitary, and other poems |  |
Neither is Jasper well at ease:
Hearts may be cold, but do not freeze
Quiet to the core; the basest lees
Smack of the wine, and the worst sin
Hath a good spirit pent within,
That with unutterable plea,
Shrieks day and night to be set free;
But that, O misery! must not be;
Lest, ere Heaven's mercy can be sought,
Madness arise, and strangle thought,
And this world, like the next, be nought.
Leave fools alone who purchase hell:
How craftily, how close and well,
They guard their purchase, who can tell?
Yet Jasper plays his part; can smile,
And looks with language reconcile;
Can hear the under-breathed curse
Behind his back, upon the Bourse,
Hear it, and laugh, nor seem the worse.
Can wring a pleasure out of pain,
Compress'd in his elastic brain;
Nay, can despise the good and just,
Proud of the parry and the thrust
With which his quick wit foils the sense
Of righteousness, and drives it thence.
Hearts may be cold, but do not freeze
Quiet to the core; the basest lees
Smack of the wine, and the worst sin
Hath a good spirit pent within,
That with unutterable plea,
Shrieks day and night to be set free;
But that, O misery! must not be;
Lest, ere Heaven's mercy can be sought,
Madness arise, and strangle thought,
120
Leave fools alone who purchase hell:
How craftily, how close and well,
They guard their purchase, who can tell?
Yet Jasper plays his part; can smile,
And looks with language reconcile;
Can hear the under-breathed curse
Behind his back, upon the Bourse,
Hear it, and laugh, nor seem the worse.
Can wring a pleasure out of pain,
Compress'd in his elastic brain;
Nay, can despise the good and just,
Proud of the parry and the thrust
With which his quick wit foils the sense
Of righteousness, and drives it thence.
| The Solitary, and other poems | |