Page:A masque of poets 1878.djvu/214

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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.