Ye brood of conscience--Spectres! that frequent The bad man’s restless walk, and haunt his bed-- Fiends in your aspect, yet beneficent In act, as hovering Angels when they spread Their wings to guard the unconscious Innocent-- 5 Slow be the Statutes of the land to share A laxity that could not but impair _Your_ power to punish crime, and so prevent. And ye, Beliefs! coiled serpent-like about The adage on all tongues, “Murder will out,”[203] 10 How shall your ancient warnings work for good In the full might they hitherto have shown, If for deliberate shedder of man’s blood Survive not Judgment that requires his own? [202] “The sixth sonnet adverts to the effect of the law in preventing the crime of murder, not merely by fear, but by horror, by investing the crime itself with the colouring of dark and terrible imaginations.” (Sir Henry Taylor.)--ED. [203] See Chaucer, _The Nonnes Priestes Tale_, l. 232.--ED. VII “BEFORE THE WORLD HAD PAST HER TIME OF YOUTH” Before the world had past her time of youth While polity and discipline were weak, The precept eye for eye, and tooth for tooth, Came forth--a light, though but as of day-break, Strong as could then be borne. A Master meek 5 Proscribed the spirit fostered by that rule, Patience _his_ law, long-suffering _his_ school, And love the end, which all through peace must seek. But lamentably do they err who strain His mandates, given rash impulse to controul 10 And keep vindictive thirstings from the soul, So far that, if consistent in their scheme, They must forbid the State to inflict a pain, Making of social order a mere dream. VIII[204] “FIT RETRIBUTION, BY THE MORAL CODE” Fit retribution, by the moral code Determined, lies beyond the State’s embrace, Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case She plants well-measured terrors in the road Of wrongful acts. Downward it is and broad, 5 And, the main fear once doomed to banishment, Far oftener then, bad ushering worse event, Blood would be spilt that in his dark abode Crime might lie better hid. And, should the change Take from the horror due to a foul deed, 10 Pursuit and evidence so far must fail, And, guilt escaping, passion then might plead In angry spirits for her old free range, And the “wild justice of revenge”[205] prevail. [204] “In the eighth sonnet the doctrine, which would strive to measure out the punishments awarded by the law in proportion to the degrees of moral turpitude, is disavowed.” (Sir Henry Taylor.)--ED. [205] See Bacon’s Essay _Of Revenge_, beginning, “Revenge is a sort of wild justice.”--ED. IX “THOUGH TO GIVE TIMELY WARNING AND DETER”