III.

    Nathless for grace I once more sue to Thee,
    Spurred on by anguish sore and deep distress:—­
    Yet have I neither art nor voice to plead
    Before Thy judgment-seat of righteousness. 
    It is not faith, it is not charity,
    Nor hope that fails me in my hour of need;
    And if, as some men teach, the soul is freed
    From sin and quickened to deserve Thy grace
    By torments suffered on this earth below,
    The Alps have neither ice, I ween, nor snow
    To match my purity before Thy face! 
    For prisons fifty, tortures seven, twelve years
    Of want and injury and woe—­
    These have I borne, and still I stand ringed round with fears.

IV.

    We lay all wrapped with darkness:  for some slept
    The sleep of ignorance, and players played
    Music to sweeten that vile sleep for gold: 
    While others waked, and hands of rapine laid
    On honours, wealth, and blood; or sexless crept
    Into the place of harlots, basely bold.—­
    I lit a light:—­like swarming bees, behold! 
    Stripped of their sheltering gloom, on me
    Sleepers and wakers rush to wreak their spite: 
    Their wounds, their brutal joys disturbed by light,
    Their broken bestial sleep fill them with jealousy.—­
    Thus with the wolves the silly sheep agreed
    Against the valiant dogs to fight;
    Then fell the prey of their false friends’ insatiate greed.

V.

    Help, mighty Shepherd!  Save Thy lamp, Thy hound,
    From wolves that ravin and from thieves that prey! 
    Make known the whole truth to the witless crowd! 
    For if my light, my voice, are cast away—­
    If sinfulness in these Thy gifts be found—­
    The sun that rules in heaven is disallowed. 
    Thou knowest without wings I cannot fly: 
    Give me the wings of grace to speed my flight! 
    Mine eyes are always turned to greet Thy light: 
    Is it my crime if still it pass me by? 
    Thou didst free Bocca and Gilardo; these,
    Worthless, are made the angels of Thy might.—­
    Hast Thou lost counsel?  Shall Thine empire cease?

VI.

    With Thee I speak:  Lord, thou dost understand! 
    Nor mind I how mad tongues my life reprove. 
    Full well I know the world is ’neath Thine eye. 
    And to each part thereof belongs Thy love: 
    But for the general welfare wisely planned
    The parts must suffer change;—­they do not die,
    For nature ebbs and flows eternally;—­
    But to such change we give the name of Death
    Or Evil, whensoe’er we feel the strife
    Which for the universe is joy and life,
    Though for each part it seems mere lack of breath.—­
    So in my body every part I see
    With lives and deaths alternate rife,
    All tending to its vital unity.