Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: Xxi

If I have since done evil in my life, I was not born for evil. This I know. My soul was a thing pure from sensual strife. No vice of the blood foredoomed me to this woe. I did not love corruption. Beauty, truth, Justice, compassion, peace with God and man, These were my laws, the instincts of my youth, And hold me still, conceal it as I can. I did not love corruption, nor do love. I find it ill to hate and ill to grieve. Nature designed me for a life above The mere discordant dreams in which I live. If I now go a beggar on the Earth, I was a saint of Heaven by right of birth.