Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ROBERT BROWNING. FROM ‘THE RING AND THE BOOK. FROM BOOK II., ’ HALF ROME.‘ Who is it dares impugn the natural law, Deny God’s word 'the faithless wife shall die’ ? What, are we blind ? How can we fail to see, This crowd of miseries make the man a mark, Accumulate on one devoted head For our example ? ? yours and mine who read Its lesson thus ?‘ Henceforward let none dare Stand, like a natural in the public way, Letting the very urchins twitch his beard And tweak his nose, to earn a nickname so, Of the male-Grissel of the modern Job !’ Had Guido, in the twinkling of an eye, Summed up the reckoning, promptly paid himself, That morning when he came up with the pair At the wayside inn, ? exacted his just debt By aid of what first mattock, pitchfork, axe Came to hand in the helpful stable-yard, And with that axe, if providence so pleased, Cloven each head, by some Rolando-stroke, In one clean cut from crown to clavicle, ? Slain the priest-gallant, the wife-paramour, Sticking, for all defence, in each skull’s cleft The rhyme and reason of the stroke thus dealt, To wit, those letters and last evidence Of shame, each package in its proper place, ? Bidding, who pitied, undistend the skulls, ? I say, the world had praised the man. But no ! That were too plain, too straight, too simply just! He hesitates, calls law forsooth to help. And law, distasteful to who calls in law When honor is beforehand and would serve, What wonder if law hesitate in turn, Plead her disuse to calls o’ the kind, reply (Smiling a little), T is yourself assess The worth of what’s lost, sum of damage done. What you touched with so light a finger-tip, You whose concern it was to grasp the thing, Why mu…
