The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti :: :: University of Virginia Library

Hard is it for a man to please all men:
I therefore speak in doubt,
And as one may that looketh to be chid.
But who can hold his peace in these days?—when
Guilt cunningly slips out,
And Innocence atones for what he did;
When worth is crushed, even if it be not hid;
When on crushed worth, guile sets his foot to rise;
And when the things wise men have counted wise
Make fools to smile and stare and lift the lid.

Let none who have not wisdom govern you:
For he that was a fool
At first shall scarce grow wise under the sun.
And as it is, my whole heart bleeds anew
To think how hard a school
Young hope grows old at, as these seasons run.
Behold, sirs, we have reached this thing for one:—
The lord before his servant bends the knee,
And service puts on lordship suddenly.
Ye speak o'the end? Ye have not yet begun.

437

I would not have ye without counsel ta'en
Follow my words; nor meant,
If one should talk and act not, to praise him
But who, being much opposed, speaks not again,
Confesseth himself shent
And put to silence,—by some loud-mouthed mime,
Perchance, for whom I speak not in this rhyme.
Strive what ye can; and if ye cannot all,
Yet should not your hearts fall:
The fruit commends the flower in God's good time.

(For without fruit, the flower delights not God):
Wherefore let him whom Hope
Puts off, remember time is not gone by.
Let him say calmly: “Thus far on this road
A foolish trust buoyed up
My soul, and made it like the summer fly
Burned in the flame it seeks: even so was I:
But now I'll aid myself: for still this trust,
I find, falleth to dust:
The fish gapes for the bait-hook, and doth die.”

And yet myself, who bid ye do this thing,—
Am I not also spurn'd
By the proud feet of Hope continually;
Till that which gave me such good comforting
Is altogether turn'd
Unto a fire whose heat consumeth me?
I am so girt with grief that my thoughts be
Tired of themselves, and from my soul I loathe
Silence and converse both;
And my own face is what I hate to see.

Because no act is meet now nor unmeet.
He that does evil, men applaud his name,
And the well-doer must put up with shame:
Yea, and the worst man sits in the best seat.