Poems (Cary)/Justified
JUSTIFIED.
Come up, my heart, come from thy hiding-place:Stern Memory grows importunate to makeHard accusation; and if that I beNot grossly misadvised, thou 'rt much to blame. Was't thou, that on a certain April night,When sweetnesses were breaking all the buds,And the red creeping vines of strawberriesHung out their dainty blossoms toward the sun—When first the dandelion from his cellCame, like a miser dragging up his gold,And making envious the poor traveler,And the wild brook—thou wottest how it ran,Betwixt the stubbly oat-field and the slopeWhere, free from needlss shepherding, that nightThe sheep went cropping thistle leaves, and IFor the soft tinkling of their silver bellsStaid listening, so I said, and said again,To be unto my conscience justified—Was 't thou that tempted me to let the dewOf midnight straiten all my pretty curls,And woo the bat-like clinging damps to comeAnd bleach the morning blushes from my cheeks?Ah, me! how many years since that same night Have come and gone, nor brought a fellow to it!Thou need'st not shake so, guilty prisoner,For though those white hairs round my forehead teachA judgment cold and passionless, and thoughThe hand that writes is palsy-touched, withal,I cannot wrong so deeply, grievously,The glorifying beauty of the world,As to declare that thou art all condemned! Yet stay, I pray thee: make some sweet excuseTo that staid saintly dame, Austerity;For she and I have been a thousand timesAt variance about her sober rule.Once when I left my gleaning in the wheat,(The time was June, sunset within an hour,)And underneath a hedge, that rained down flowersOf hawthorn and wild roses in my lap,Sat idling with young Jocelyn, till thatThe shadows of the mowers, stretching outLike threatening ghosts, did cut our pastime off,She rated me so mercilessly hardThat I was fain with fables to make peace.I said that I was tired, and that a bird,Soft-singing In the hedge, drew me that way;And then I said I looked for catydids,(It was three months before their chirping time,)And that 't was pleasant to look thence and seeThe sunshine topping all the wide-leaved corn,And the young apples on the orchard boughsWith the betraying red upon their checks,What other most improbable conceits I told to her, I now remember not;But I remember that her frowning browsSo chid me to confusion that I saidIt was not Jocelyn that kept me there!She smiled, and we since then are enemies.Silent? thou hast no eloquence to winHer cold regard upon my waywardness.Well, be it so! and though the great wide worldStare blank that I do soften judgment so,Thou stand'st acquitted, yea, and justified.