With one same mother-voice and face, (that what
They speak may be invincible,) the sins
Of earth's tormentors before God, the just,
Until the unconscious thunder-bolt begins
To loosen in His grasp.
XXIII.
Beware, and mark the natural kiths and kins
Of circumstance and office, and distrust
A rich man reasoning in a poor man's hut;
A poet who neglects pure truth to prove
Statistic fact; a child who leaves a rut
For the smooth road; a priest who vows his glove
Exhales no grace; a prince who walks a-foot;
A woman who has sworn she will not love;
Ninth Pius sitting in Seventh Gregory's chair,
With Andrea Doria's forehead!
XXIV.
To making up a Pope, before he wear
That triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes
Which went to make the Popedom,—the despair
Of free men, good men, wise men; the dread shows
Of women's faces, by the faggot's flash,
Tossed out, to the minutest stir and throb
Of the white lips, least tremble of a lash,
To glut the red stare of the licensed mob!
The short mad cries down oubliettes,—the plash
So horribly far off! priests, trained to rob;
And kings that, like encouraged nightmares, sate
On nations' hearts most heavily distressed
With monstrous sights and apophthegms of fate.
