C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Pardon
By Julia Ward Howe (18191910)
P
Now thou art cold;
Vengeance the headlong, and justice with purpose close muttered,
Loosen their hold.
Murder accurst;
But, from the crisis of crime in which Satan did lose him,
Suffered the worst,
Never to mend;
But harsher days he wore out in the bitter pursuing
And the wild end.
In whose avail
Madness that moved, and the swift retribution that found him,
Falter and fail.
Willing to fall,
Lend him one fold, his illustrious victim adorning
With wider pall.
Bade all souls live,
Turns the reft bosom of Nature, his mother, low sighing,
“Greatest, forgive!”