But with no longer date than doth make green
The lingering wintry ash among the trees,
This favouring promise of the time was seen
Mid lowering clouds to mourn its own decease.
The blowing buds, put forth with rein so free,
Fell from the branch by angry destinies,
And severed honour from the rooted tree,
Which still endured, and ready stood to bear,
Though each new birth still fell to fate's decree
Sir Mano, living in that city fair,
That head of earth, and empire's lofty seat,
Beheld what strangest things were mingled there:
For opposites within the same may meet:
And where religion held her sovereign throne,
There in her shade lay murder and deceit:
O'er rapine vile was saintly order thrown,
And evil deeds were wrapped in priestly fold.
The pictured walls, the images of stone,
Showing the acts of saints and martyrs old,
Were by apostates from apostles shamed,
Who in the temple's precinct bought and sold.
And albeit Gerbert, now Sylvester named,
Wrought sore those dark abuses to abate,
Yet hardly this French pope his own reclaimed
Among those creatures of an earlier date:
Fell passions seethed around his trembling throne
And all his steps were marked by secret hate
The sight of these things made Sir Mano groan
With troubled wonder that in holiest place
Impiety and fraud were highest flown:
And while he fed his heart on foul disgrace,
A thing befell, which in the sequel cast
The cloud of fate on fortune's budding grace,
And drove him from that land, as from the last.
But first, regard herein, I you require,
The destiny exact that him o'ercast
A man in sin may satisfy desire,
But pay no forfeit, and forgiven be,
If fate so will, that gives to all her hire
This Mano found, ye may full well agree,
When folly he committed by the way,
And yet lost not the name of piety.
A man may mean the best to do and say,
But by the best be humbled and depressed,
And by the best work best his own decay:
Because the best may like the worst be dressed,
If fate, mocking the best, her fraud apply
By his own best to slay who means the best.
This other horn of fate, now lifted high,
Likewise Sir Mano felt, when that befell
Which sudden was, and came full dangerously.
When now, being sad in thought, and meaning well,
To ill for good his deeds by all were bent;
And in misprision prized by fatal spell
Yea, who should most have known his good intent,
And in whose grace he sought the most to abound,
That man the most his trouble did augment.
But speak no more of fate and fatal wound:
Say rather that transgression pays the price,
In whatsoever coin the same be found.
To mark the extremes of fate be not o'er-nice:
Whether of evil seeming good unshent,
Or good ill-seeming smitten in a trice.
For if the sinner fail of punishment,
And then in doing well be ill apaid,
This of the other is equivalent,
And may be consequent, howso delayed. —
Nor say, the fool may everything commit,
And ne'er with him a reckoning be made:
But if the good from goodness start one whit,
Down is he smitten by a thousand woes:
A thousand justices in judgment sit,
A thousand lictors deal most righteous blows. —
Nor add that if the good deserve no blame,
But do a thing that like to evil shows,
Such as fools daily do, it ends the same