Thus saintship is effected probably;
No sparing saints the process!—which the more
Tends to the reconciling us, no saints,
To sinnership, immunity and all.
Till seventeen years ago, all Rome might note
And quote for happy—see the signs distinct
Of happiness as we yon Triton’s trump.
What could they be but happy?—balanced so,
Nor low i’ the social scale nor yet too high, (120)
Nor poor nor richer than comports with ease,
Nor bright and envied, nor obscure and scorned,
Nor so young that their pleasures fell too thick,
Nor old past catching pleasure when it fell,
Nothing above, below the just degree,
All at the mean where joy’s components mix.
So again, in the couple’s very souls
You saw the adequate half with half to match,
Each having and each lacking somewhat, both
Making a whole that had all and lacked nought; (130)
The round and sound, in whose composure just
The acquiescent and recipient side
Was Pietro’s, and the stirring striving one
Violante’s: both in union gave the due
Quietude, enterprise, craving and content,
Which go to bodily health and peace of mind.
But, as ’tis said a body, rightly mixed,
Each element in equipoise, would last
Too long and live for ever,—accordingly
Holds a germ—sand-grain weight too much i’ the scale—
Ordained to get predominance one day (141)
And so bring all to ruin and release,—
Not otherwise a fatal germ lurked here:
“With mortals much must go, but something stays;
“Nothing will stay of our so happy selves.”
Out of the very ripeness of life’s core
A worm was bred—“Our life shall leave no fruit.”
Enough of bliss, they thought, could bliss bear seed,
Yield its like, propagate a bliss in turn
And keep the kind up; not supplant themselves (150)
But put in evidence, record they were,
Show them, when done with, i’ the shape of a child.
“’Tis in a child, man and wife grow complete,
“One flesh: God says so: let him do his work!”
One special prick o’ the maggot at the core,
Always befell when, as the day came round,
A certain yearly sum,—our Pietro being,
As the long name runs, an usufructuary,—
Dropped in the common bag as interest (160)
Of money, his till death, not afterward,
Failing an heir: an heir would take and take,
A child of theirs be wealthy in their place
To nobody’s hurt—the stranger else seized all.
Prosperity rolled river-like and stopped,
Making their mill go; but when wheel wore out,
The wave would find a space and sweep on free
And, half-a-mile off, grind some neighbour’s corn.
Eve saw the apple was fair and good to taste, (170)
So, plucked it, having asked the snake advice.
She told her husband God was merciful,
And his and her prayer granted at the last:
Let the old mill-stone moulder,—wheel unworn,
Quartz from the quarry, shot into the stream
Adroitly, should go bring grist as before—
Their house continued to them by an heir,
Their vacant heart replenished with a child.
We have her own confession at full length
Made in the first remorse: ’twas Jubilee (180)
Pealed in the ear o’ the conscience and it woke.
She found she had offended God no doubt,
So much was plain from what had happened since,
Misfortune on misfortune; but she harmed
No one i’ the world, so far as she could see.
The act had gladdened Pietro to the height,
Her husband—God himself must gladden so
Or not at all—(thus much seems probable
From the implicit faith, or rather say
Stupid credulity of the foolish man (190)
Who swallowed such a tale nor strained a whit
Even at his wife’s far- over-fifty years
Matching his sixty-and-under.) Him she blessed,
And as for doing any detriment,
To the veritable heir,—why, tell her first
Who was he? Which of all the hands held up
I’ the crowd, would one day gather round their gate,
Did she so wrong by intercepting thus
The ducat, spendthrift fortune thought to fling
For a scramble just to make the mob break shins? (200)
She kept it, saved them kicks and cuffs thereby.
While at the least one good work had she wrought,
Good, clearly and incontestably! Her cheat—
What was it to its subject, the child’s self,
But charity and religion? See the girl!
A body most like—a soul too probably—
Doomed to death, such a double death as waits
The illicit offspring of a common trull,
Sure to resent and forthwith rid herself
Of a mere interruption to sin’s trade, (210)
In the efficacious way old Tiber knows.
Was not so much proved by the ready sale
O’ the child, glad transfer of this irksome chance?
Well then, she had caught up this castaway:
This fragile egg, some careless wild bird dropped,
She had picked from where it waited the foot-fall,
And put in her own breast till forth broke finch
Able to sing God praise on mornings now.
What so excessive harm was done?—she asked.
For that same deed, now at Lorenzo’s church,
Both agents, conscious and inconscious, lie;
While she, the deed was done to benefit,
Lies also, the most lamentable
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