These human midges have not missed their chance.
They have missed no smallest spot upon that sun.
My mother was not married--they have found--
To my dear father. All his children, then,
And doubtless all their thoughts are evil, too;
But who that judged him ever sought to know
Whether, as evil sometimes wears the cloak
Of virtue, nobler virtue in this man
Might wear that outward semblance of a sin?
Yes, even you who love me, may believe
These thoughts are born of my own tainted heart;
And yet I write them, kneeling in my cell
And whisper them to One who blesses me
Here, from His Cross, upon the bare grey wall.
So, if you love me, bless me also, you,
By helping him. Make plain to all you meet
What part his enemies have played in this.
How some one, somehow, altered the command
Laid on him all those years ago, by Rome,
So that it reads to-day as if he vowed
Never to think or breathe that this round earth
Moves with its sister-planets round the sun.
'Tis true he promised not to write or speak
As if this truth were 'stablished equally
With God's eternal laws; and so he wrote
His Dialogues, reasoning for it, and against,
And gave the last word to Simplicio,
Saying that human reason must bow down
Before the power of God.
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