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 seem 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 waiting 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!
