CXXXII.

   And thou, who never yet of human wrong
   Left the unbalanced scale, great Nemesis! 
   Here, where the ancients paid thee homage long —
   Thou, who didst call the Furies from the abyss,
   And round Orestes bade them howl and hiss
   For that unnatural retribution—­just,
   Had it but been from hands less near—­in this
   Thy former realm, I call thee from the dust! 
Dost thou not hear my heart?—­Awake! thou shalt, and must.

CXXXIII.

   It is not that I may not have incurred
   For my ancestral faults or mine the wound
   I bleed withal, and had it been conferred
   With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound. 
   But now my blood shall not sink in the ground;
   To thee I do devote it—­thou shalt take
   The vengeance, which shall yet be sought and found,
   Which if I have not taken for the sake —
But let that pass—­I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake.

CXXXIV.

   And if my voice break forth, ’tis not that now
   I shrink from what is suffered:  let him speak
   Who hath beheld decline upon my brow,
   Or seen my mind’s convulsion leave it weak;
   But in this page a record will I seek. 
   Not in the air shall these my words disperse,
   Though I be ashes; a far hour shall wreak
   The deep prophetic fulness of this verse,
And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse!

CXXXV.

   That curse shall be forgiveness.—­Have I not —
   Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it, Heaven! —
   Have I not had to wrestle with my lot? 
   Have I not suffered things to be forgiven? 
   Have I not had my brain seared, my heart riven,
   Hopes sapped, name blighted, Life’s life lied away? 
   And only not to desperation driven,
   Because not altogether of such clay
As rots into the souls of those whom I survey.

CXXXVI.

   From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy
   Have I not seen what human things could do? 
   From the loud roar of foaming calumny
   To the small whisper of the as paltry few
   And subtler venom of the reptile crew,
   The Janus glance of whose significant eye,
   Learning to lie with silence, would seem true,
   And without utterance, save the shrug or sigh,
Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy.

CXXXVII.

   But I have lived, and have not lived in vain: 
   My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
   And my frame perish even in conquering pain,
   But there is that within me which shall tire
   Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire: 
   Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
   Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,
   Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.