Page:Captain Craig; a book of poems.djvu/42

28 And one in hell without enjoying it; And each had been dissuaded neither more Nor less thereafter. There are such on earth As might have been composed primarily For object-lessons: he was one of them, And she—the devil makes us hesitate: 'T is easy to read words writ well with ink That makes a good black mark on smooth white paper; But words are done sometimes with other ink Whereof the smooth white paper gives no sign Till science brings it out; and here we come To knowledge, and the way to test a devil.

"To the greater number of us, you contend, This demon of the sunlight is a stranger; But if you break the sunlight of yourself, Project it, and observe the quaint shades of it, I have a shrewd suspicion you may find That even as a name lives unrevealed In ink that waits an agent, so it is The devil—or this devil—hides himself To all the diagnoses we have made Save one,—sincerity. The quest is hard— As hard as truth; but once we seem to know That his compound obsequiousness prevails Unferreted within us, we may find