man! there is no power in holy men,
Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form
Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast,
Nor agony--nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep Despair, 70
Which is Remorse without the fear of Hell,
But all in all sufficient to itself
Would make a hell of Heaven--can exorcise
From out the unbounded spirit the quick sense
Of its own sins--wrongs--sufferance--and revenge
Upon itself; there is no future pang
Can deal that justice on the self--condemned
He deals on his own soul.

_Abbot_. All this is well;
For this will pass away, and be succeeded
By an auspicious hope, which shall look up 80
With calm assurafice to that blessed place,
Which all who seek may win, whatever be
Their earthly errors, so they be atoned:
And the commencement of atonement is
The sense of its necessity. Say on--
And all our church can teach thee shall be taught;
And all we can absolve thee shall be pardoned.

_Man_. When Rome's sixth Emperor[156] was near his last,
The victim of a self-inflicted wound,
To shun the torments of a public death[bd] 90
From senates once his slaves, a certain soldier,
With show of loyal pity, would have stanched
The gushing throat with his officious robe;
The dying Roman thrust him back, and said--
Some empire still in his expiring glance--
"It is too late--is this fidelity?"

_Abbot_. And what of this?

_Man_. I answer with the Roman--
"It is too late!"

_Abbot_. It never can be so,
To reconcile thyself with thy own soul,
And thy own soul with Heaven. Hast thou no hope? 100
'Tis strange--even those who do despair above,
Yet shape themselves some fantasy on earth,
To which frail twig they cling, like drowning men.

_Man_. Aye--father! I have had those early visions,
And noble aspirations in my youth,
To make my own the mind of other men,
The enlightener of nations; and to rise
I knew not whither--it might be to fall;
But fall, even as the mountain-cataract,
Which having leapt from its more dazzling height, 110
Even in the foaming strength of its abyss,
(Which casts up misty columns that become
Clouds raini