A sinner, Roderick, drawing nigh, replied; Brought to repentance by the grace of God, And trusting for forgiveness through the blood Of Christ in humble hope. A smile of scorn Julian assumed, but merely from the lips It came; for he was troubled while he gazed On the strong countenance and thoughtful eye Before him. A new law hath been proclaim’d, Said he, which overthrows in its career The Christian altars of idolatry. What think’st thou of the Prophet?... Roderick Made answer, I am in the Moorish camp, And he who asketh is a Musselman. How then should I reply?... Safely, rejoin’d The renegade, and freely may’st thou speak To all that Julian asks. Is not the yoke Of Mecca easy, and its burden light?... Spain hath not found it so, the Goth replied, And groaning, turn’d away his countenance. Count Julian knit his brow, and stood awhile Regarding him with meditative eye In silence. Thou art honest too! he cried; Why ’twas in quest of such a man as this That the old Grecian search’d by lantern light In open day the city’s crowded streets, So rare he deem’d the virtue. Honesty And sense of natural duty in a Priest! Now for a miracle, ye Saints of Spain! I shall not pry too closely for the wires, For, seeing what I see, ye have me now In the believing mood! O blessed Saints, Florinda cried, ’tis from the bitterness, Not from the hardness of the heart, he speaks! Hear him! and in your goodness give the scoff The virtue of a prayer! So saying, she raised Her hands in fervent action claspt to Heaven: Then as, still claspt, they fell, toward her sire She turn’d her eyes, beholding him through tears. The look, the gesture, and that silent woe, Soften’d her father’s heart, which in this hour Was open to the influences of love. Priest, thy vocation were a blessed one, Said Julian, if its mighty power were used To lessen human misery, not to swell The mournful sum, already all-too-great. If, as thy former counsel should imply, Thou art not one who would for his craft’s sake Fret with corrosives and inflame the wound, Which the poor sufferer brings to thee in trust That thou with virtuous balm will bind it up, ... If, as I think, thou art not one of those Whose villainy makes honest men turn Moors, Thou then wilt answer with unbiass’d mind What I shall ask thee, and exorcise thus The sick and feverish conscience of my child, From inbred phantoms, fiend-like, which possess Her innocent spirit. Children we are all Of one great Father, in whatever clime Nature or chance hath cast the seeds of life, All tongues, all colours: neither after death Shall we be sorted into languages And tints, ... white, black, and tawny, Greek and Goth, Northmen and offspring of hot Africa; The All-Father, He in whom we live and move, He the indifferent Judge of all, regards