We know nothing
about Friar Lawrence except what his deadly enemy tells us; but it
is quite clear that Lawrence is a dear old man, innocent as a child;
while the speaker, simply in giving his testimony against him,
reveals a heart jealous, malicious, lustful; he is like a thoroughly
bad boy at school, with a pornographic book carefully concealed.
Just at the moment when his rage and hatred reach a climax, the
vesper bell sounds; and the speaker, who is an intensely strict
formalist and ritualist, presents to us an amusing spectacle; for
out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing.
SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER
1842
I
Gr-r-r--there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims--
Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!
II
At the meal we sit together:
_Salve tibi_! I must hear
Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year:
_Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare me hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What's the Latin name for "parsley_?"
What's the Greek name for Swine's Snout?
III
Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,
Rinsed like something sacrificial
Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps--
Marked with L.
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