Page:A masque of poets 1878.djvu/214

208 What was the Voice that hurried him abroad,
 * He deemed his better angel's? Providence

Seems after all a sort of two-edged sword,—
 * Now the direct, miraculous defence
 * Of piety and helpless innocence;

Then, suddenly reversed, it seems no less To shape the ways of sin and wickedness.

Could we but know when life's true light is given!
 * Are there attendant powers of good and evil,

One Influence, rightly deemed the Will of Heaven,
 * And one which we—in phrase not quite so civil—
 * Succinctly term temptation of the Devil?

And both so like! Would some one, who has seen them, Might teach us to discriminate between them!

Here, things are so astonishingly mixed,
 * And morals still so little understood,

It takes a saint indeed to choose betwixt
 * The bad that's pleasant and the bitter good,
 * Always with perfect faith and certitude!

Evil, perhaps, being nothing more nor less Than good in disproportion, or excess.