![\"\"](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_-GKMR8mFGBs\/TVKuTyP0hMI\/AAAAAAAABb0\/PFwT8R56bRM\/s200\/St.+Peter_Preaching_Anton_Raphael_Mengs.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nIt is a serpent tempts thee, noble youth.
\nEven while speaking truth he leads astray.
\nHis eye is subtle, but his heart is blind,
\nAnd of God\u2019s fruits he marks the spotted rind,
\nBut not the kernel where their virtue lay.
\nAll nature yields no meaning to his mind,
\nFor understanding withers at its springs
\nUnless love guide it to the sense of things.
\nOn faith is built the wisdom of mankind.
\nMark how this age, that builds its truth on doubt,
\nFalters at heart and knows no certain hope,
\nBut trusts to fate, with which it dare not cope,
\nTo work its undeserved salvation out.
\nWhat truth have men ? The senses brief deceit.
\nWhat happiness ? The slavery to greed.
\nWhat art ? An echo and a paltry cheat.
\nWhat God ? A helpless consciousness of need.
\nUpon what food, then, doth this people feed
\nThat it forgets of whom it borrows breath?
\nKnows it the secret of the budding grain,
\nOr can it conjure floods or summon rain?
\nOr grows it sick and amorous of death,
\nOr like its father, Satan, dull to pain?
\nOh, men have waxed too covetous of gold
\nTo lift their eyes up from their labour s gain;
\nAnd as each morning brings the sun again
\nAnd summer wears his splendours as of old,
\nThey drive the ploughshare deeper in the mould
\nAnd say : There are no longer gods in heaven!
\nWith smitten breast and penance would they crave
\nTheir bread, if God less bountifully gave,
\nBut they forget him now, when all is given.
\nThus are the souls my Master died to save
\nLike earth-regarding beasts in stupor driven
\nWithout the hope of heaven to the grave.<\/p>\n
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\nfrom Act IV, Christ to Lucifer<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_-GKMR8mFGBs\/TVKy-Rd5zUI\/AAAAAAAABb4\/iXt7CJXQSj0\/s200\/temptation_of_christ.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nUnteachable! Is God not the Lord of Hosts?
\nThe arms that against his bosom fly
\nHis own strength drives, and in thy mutiny
\nHe triumphs, and is mighty in thy boasts.
\nWhat need of sentinel to guard the shore
\nWhen he is master of the embosoming sea,
\nWhen his the wave, the bark, the sail, the oar,
\nAnd his the sinews of his enemy?
\nO Lucifer, couldst thou behold thy soul,
\nAs it lies open to my Father\u2019s sight,
\nThe gathering clouds of pity fast would roll
\nAcross thine eyes, to hide thy proper plight,
\nAnd rain on thy parched heart in showers light
\nOf sweet humility. Woe to the vain
\nAnd raging will that hugs its mortal pain.
\nIs it for thee to fathom wrong and right?
\nTis God who spun the fibres of thy brain
\nAnd wove thy reason; had he placed awry
\nOne thread, new dreams had turned
\nthy dreams to naught
\nAnd idle thought confounded idle thought
\nFor ever, and none questioned destiny.
\nNow thine own tyrant, to thyself unkind,
\nThou chafest at the limits of thy wit
\nWhose meek quietus were to live resigned
\nAnd serve the elder will that fashioned it
\nFor in the bosom of the infinite
\nThou hast thy life, and thy forsaken woes
\nLike foam on the false bosom of a wave,
\nRise in vain fury, impotently rave
\nA moment only. Then thy proud will goes
\nWhither the billow sinks or the wind blows.<\/p>\n
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<\/a><\/div>\n