PATIENCE! I yet may pierce the rind Wherewith are shrewdly girded round The subtle secrets of his mind: A dark, unwholesome core is bound Perchance within it! Sir, you see, Men are not what they @3seem@1 to be! A candid mien and plausible tongue! A bearing calmly frank and fair, The tear ('twould seem) by pity wrung, All these are his, but still, beware! A something strange, false, unbegot Of virtue, whispers, trust him not: But yesterday, his mask (I know He wears one), for a moment's space, By chance dropped off and swift below The smile just waning on his face, I caught a look, flashed sudden, keen As lightning, which he deemed unseen. I will not pause to tell thee what That look betrayed! enough I think, To smite the spirit cold and hot, By turns, and make one inly shrink From contact with a soul that keeps Such wild-fire smouldering in its deeps: So friend, be warned! he is not one Thy youth should trust, for all his smiles, Frank foreheads, genial as the sun, May hide a thousand treacherous wiles, And tones, like music's honeyed flow, May work (God knows!) the bitterest woe! |