PATIENCE! I yet may pierce the rind Wherewith are shrewdly girded round The subtle secrets of his mind: A dark, unwholesome core is bound Perchance within it! Sir, you see, Men are not what they @3seem@1 to be! A candid mien and plausible tongue! A bearing calmly frank and fair, The tear ('twould seem) by pity wrung, All these are his, but still, beware! A something strange, false, unbegot Of virtue, whispers, trust him not: But yesterday, his mask (I know He wears one), for a moment's space, By chance dropped off and swift below The smile just waning on his face, I caught a look, flashed sudden, keen As lightning, which he deemed unseen. I will not pause to tell thee what That look betrayed! enough I think, To smite the spirit cold and hot, By turns, and make one inly shrink From contact with a soul that keeps Such wild-fire smouldering in its deeps: So friend, be warned! he is not one Thy youth should trust, for all his smiles, Frank foreheads, genial as the sun, May hide a thousand treacherous wiles, And tones, like music's honeyed flow, May work (God knows!) the bitterest woe! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOHN WINTER by LAURENCE BINYON FAITH AND DESPONDENCY by EMILY JANE BRONTE SIBERIA by JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN HESPERUS THE BRINGER by SAPPHO SONNET: 104 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE SONNET: 64 by WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE THE ENTHUSIAST, OR, THE LOVER OF NATURE by JOSEPH WARTON |