Patience and Anger

I will be patient as my day is long,
Proverbially soft and quick to please,

For gentleness a giant, and as strong
In giving up, in falling to my knees
(The mind's knees, that eschew external show)
Like Christopher, who had been wrathful too,
To beg my meekness, change the every blow
For cheek, and cheek for quiet; brief: to do
All charity and justice could request.
But as the shadow lengthens into dark,
Claim upon claim are piled against my breast,
Not smothering, but kindling the spark.
Light straws ignite the faster, blaze the higher;
When fall'n on dried wood: fury; wrath, rage—fire.












My wrongs! the anger, lion-hot and blind
To logic, judging law-like on the eye
That it has not! This fever on the mind
Signs deeper rots beneath the boils lie.
Since bitterness is natively obtained,
Such ire is bastard-like in ease begot;
But mildness—true issue, and unstained—
Requires a stranger mother; and the plot
Must first be husbanded, the woman wooed,
Before the the child, the rose, the virtue sings.
Abandon judgment, close your eyes, nor brood
On weights and numbers, slaps and burdens, stings;
Then Charity you could not else have won,
May bear thy Patience as your lawful son.