Sonnets<br><br>Man cannot be a sophist to his heart,<br>He must look nakedly on his intent,<br>Expose it of all shreds of argument,<br>id strip it like a slave^girl in the mart.<br>What though with speckled truths and masked confessions<br>He still deceives awhile the outer sense?<br>At barely half his honesty's expense<br>Still earns the world's excuse for the world's transgressions?<br><br>His conscience cannot play the marshland elf,<br>Confusing that poor midnight wanderer,<br>His soul, with floundering Tights and errant gleams.<br>O what damnation man would deal himself<br>If meeting her beyond his uttermost dreams<br>He still could face his soul and lie to her.<br><br>0 spare me from the hand of niggard love<br>That grasps at interest on what it lends,<br>And sets cold counsel as a guard above<br>The hoard it calculates before it spends.<br>Such misers of the riches of the heart<br>Bear their untested treasure to the grave,<br>And miss the whole, striving to save the part,<br>By the bare measure they have striven to save.<br><br>Is it for pride in saying at the end:<br>See, Life! I spent not all that thou hast given —<br>Lo, this and this and this I did not spend!<br>I stinted earth of bliss to add to heaven.<br>Alas, poor fools! life only gave ye this<br>Because earth has such need of heavenly bliss.