Sweet Hours by Carmen Sylva — Read

Thou wouldst not be avenged if thou hadst but / Insight enough into the human heart, / Into its frailty and its cowardice.

Thou wouldst not be avenged if thou but sawest / How mad, how childish and how selfish are / The helpless ones, that did thee harm because / They thought -- Ah! What then thought they! That perchance / You hated them, or trod them down, or took / Their sun away; and e'en for love will they / Destroy thee, meaning well with thee -- so well, / That they as lief would see thee dead, not to / Belong to what they hate -- thy work, thy friend, / Thy strong ambition, or the gift that God / Hath put into thy soul, that calleth thee / Away to other heights and other temples, / Then where they long have worshipped. They dislike / Thy road, thy word, they call it strange and dark, / And they would lead thee back to where they started / So long ago with thee, and show the wrong / Thou doest quite unwittingly. A sigh, / A smile is all thine answer, but thy way / Is chosen; then the hue and cry is raised / Against thee, and thy staunchest friends will pile / With eager hands the wood on which to burn / Thy very soul, and not a tear will quench / That fire, not a hand will save thee, for / Thou art misunderstood, misjudged, despised, / And hated by the friends, who once believed / In thee as in their God. And what revenge / Could help thee? Falling back on thee, thy arm / Struck to the ground, thy heart a desert, not / Devastated to bloom again, but burnt / To lava by your heart's own flame of vengeance.