Sonnets

Almighty God! what though the laws of FateInvincible, and this long misery,Proving my prayers not merely spent in vainBut heard and granted crosswise, banish meFar from Thy sight,--still humbly obstinateI turn to Thee. No other hopes remain.Were there another God with vows to gain,To Him for succour I would surely go:Nor could I be called impious, if I turnedIn this great agony from one who spurned,To one who bade me come and cured my woe.Nay, Lord! I babble vainly. Help! I cry,Before the temple where Thy reason burned,Become a mosque of imbecility!

Well know I that there are no words which canMove Thee to favour him for whom Thy graceWas not reserved from all eternity.Repentance in Thy counsel finds no place:Nor can the eloquence of mortal manBend Thee to mercy, when Thy sure decreeHath stablished that this frame of mine should beRent by these pangs that flesh and spirit tire.Nay if the whole world knows my martyrdom--Heaven, earth, and all that in them have their home--Why tell the tale to Thee, their Lord and Sire?And if all change is death or some such state,Thou deathless God, to whom for help I come,How shall I make Thee change, to change my fate?

Nathless for grace I once more sue to Thee,Spurred on by anguish sore and deep distress:--Yet have I neither art nor voice to pleadBefore Thy judgment-seat of righteousness.It is not faith, it is not charity,Nor hope that fails me in my hour of need;And if, as some men teach, the soul is freedFrom sin and quickened to deserve Thy graceBy torments suffered on this earth below,The Alps have neither ice, I ween, nor snowTo match my purity before Thy face!For prisons fifty, tortures seven, twelve yearsOf want and injury and woe--These have I borne, and still I stand ringed round with fears.

We lay all wrapped with darkness: for some sleptThe sleep of ignorance, and players playedMusic to sweeten that vile sleep for gold:While others waked, and hands of rapine laidOn honours, wealth, and blood; or sexless creptInto the place of harlots, basely bold.--I lit a light:--like swarming bees, behold!Stripped of their sheltering gloom, on meSleepers and wakers rush to wreak their spite:Their wounds, their brutal joys disturbed by light,Their broken bestial sleep fill them with jealousy.--Thus with the wolves the silly sheep agreedAgainst the valiant dogs to fight;Then fell the prey of their false friends' insatiate greed.

Help, mighty Shepherd! Save Thy lamp, Thy hound,From wolves that ravin and from thieves that prey!Make known the whole truth to the witless crowd!For if my light, my voice, are cast away--If sinfulness in these Thy gifts be found--The sun that rules in heaven is disallowed.Thou knowest without wings I cannot fly:Give me the wings of grace to speed my flight!Mine eyes are always turned to greet Thy light:Is it my crime if still it pass me by?Thou didst free Bocca and Gilardo; these,Worthless, are made the angels of Thy might.--Hast Thou lost counsel? Shall Thine empire cease?

With Thee I speak: Lord, thou dost understand!Nor mind I how mad tongues my life reprove.Full well I know the world is 'neath Thine eye.And to each part thereof belongs Thy love:But for the general welfare wisely plannedThe parts must suffer change;--they do not die,For nature ebbs and flows eternally;--But to such change we give the name of DeathOr Evil, whensoe'er we feel the strifeWhich for the universe is joy and life,Though for each part it seems mere lack of breath.--So in my body every part I seeWith lives and deaths alternate rife,All tending to its vital unity.

Thus then the Universe grieves not, and IMid woes innumerable languish stillTo cheer the whole and every happier part.--Yet, if each part is suffered by Thy willTo call for aid--as Thou art God most High,Who to all beings wilt Thy strength impart;Who smoothest every change by secret art,With fond care tempering the force of fate,Necessity and concord, power and thought,And love divine through all things subtly wrought--I am persuaded, when I iterateMy prayers to Thee, some comfort I must findFor these pangs poison-fraught,Or leave the sweet sharp lust of life behind.

The Universe hath nought that changes not,Nor in its change feels not the pangs of pain,Nor prays not unto God to ease that woe.Mid these are many who the grace obtainOf aid from Thee:--thus Thou didst rule their lot:And many who without Thy help must go.How shall I tell toward whom Thy favours flow,Seeing I sat not at Thy council-board?One argument at least doth hearten meTo hope those prayers may not unanswered be,Which reason and pure thoughts to me afford:Since often, if not always, Thou dost willIn Thy deep wisdom, Lord,Best laboured soil with fairest fruits to fill.

The tilth of this my field by plough and hoeYields me good hope--but more the fostering sunOf Sense divine that quickens me within,Whose rays those many minor stars outshone--That it is destined in high heaven to showMercy, and grant my prayer; so I may winThe end Thy gifts betoken, enter inThe realm reserved for me from earliest time.Christ prayed but 'If it may be,' knowing wellHe might not shun that cup so terrible:His angel answered, that the law sublimeOrdained his death. I prayed not thus, and mine--Was mine then sent from Hell?--Made answer diverse from that voice divine.

Go song, go tell my Lord--'Lo! he who liesTortured in chains within a pit for Thee,Cries, how can flight be freeWingless?--Send Thy word down, or ThouShow that fate's wheel turns not iniquity,And that in heaven there is no lip that lies.'--Yet, song, too boldly fliesThy shaft; stay yet for this that follows now!