Explore "Forbearance" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Beareth all things. -- 2 COR. xiii.7.
Gently I took that which ungently came, / And without scorn forgave: -- Do thou the same. / A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye spark / Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark / Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin, / Fear that -- the spark self-kindled from within, / Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare, / Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air. / Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds, / And soon the ventilated spirit finds / Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd, / Or worse than foe, an alienated friend, / A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side, / Think it God's message, and in humble pride / With heart of oak replace it; -- thine the gains -- / Give him the rotten timber for his pains!