Against the disguised fell Fate, the thing not us! that so lured us
First, and then drove and dragg’d, and degraded us, and defiled us!
The self-disgust (for however one came in the ditch one is loathsome),
The self-hate, self-despair, the fierce abhorrence of life.
O worse! for turn as I would from the wickedness I had committed,
Committed it was! It was done! Not Heaven’s own self could undo it,
No repentance erase it, no forgiveness annul—
There in the history of things it was a vileness eternal—
It never could be Not Done.
“You too,—your sin, you abhor it,
Loathe it, spurn it—I know! but alas, my son! you have done it,
And you cannot make it undone—Nay, my dear! I hurt but to help you.
Trust the touch of your mother—the touch of your fellow-sinner!
Together let’s face it! It’s there, it has to be faced. Look, my dearest—
You’ve done it, you cannot undo it.
But—what will you do with it next?
“Ay, son, take courage with me, for there is a way from transgression,
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