Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 3.pdf/43

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Wound such vile folk (and tear to bits

Their mask) as Christ for hypocrites

Condemned, all one it is to me

If monks or secular they be;

Though some of these with will to show

Their holiness will fain forego

Flesh meat, and by their abstinence

Parade make of their penitence,

As though they kept the fast of Lent,

Far better ’twere if they forewent

Their neighbours to devour, forsooth,

And bite with slander’s cruel tooth.

Of such alone my targe I make,

To wound and tear and bruise and break.

At those I shoot as e’en I may,

But if one sets him in the way

Whereas my shaft of needs must fly,

And so receives it wilfully,

Misled by foolishness and pride,

When lightly might he stand aside;

Though he reproached me, being hit,

I should not blame myself one bit.

Although his death he thereby found,

For no man will mine arrow wound

Who fain would keep him safe from me,

If he but guard him honestly.

And whosoe’er a wound doth feel

Delivered by my piercing steel,

May quickly of his sore be quit

If he but cast the hypocrite.

And howsoe’er some men profess

Instinct to be with nobleness,