UNPARDONED

Gentle as the air that kisses

The splendid and ignoble with one breath,

Gentle as obliterating Death —

Though you be gentler yet,

In days when the old, old things begin to fret

The backward-looking consciousness,

Will you forget?

Or if remembering, will you forgive?

But there is one severer.

Stung by your forgivingness so great

Shall I forgive you then?—

Basest of men

Would rise in bitterness and sting again.

Not if you should forget

Could I forget:

Or if remembering, myself could I forgive?

Never! And yet such things have been,

And ills as dark forgiven or forgot.

But in those black hours when the heart burns hot

And there's no nerve that's not

Quick with the sense of things unheard, unseen —

A terrible voice that's mine yet not mine cries,

“Can that Eternal Righteousness

Remembering forgive?”