Old cold conscience comes carrying the law.

Tide is the presumptuous agent, conscience,

Who punishes in silence, and one alone,

Some self-failure of a self-given command.

A public wrong-doer serves and goes free.

The doom judge conscience utters is to be

Guilty. The punishment is poison by guilt,

The slow death, corrosion of innocence.

So we rust. We are imperfect all.

I will not die for such inconsequence.

My guilt is my guilt, I know its smell,

Hang, size, clutch, and following cloud:

You know how haunted well you know yours.

But a prouder figure, older in this court

Than conscience, easily tell, a column in sun,

At last speaks, his words what but praise

Of some part angel stopping as all ape,

But if anything excessively, a man,

Unable to spoil or scent within him grace.

And the imbalance rightens, the lost light

Forgiving dark from the beginning of years.

I had forgotten there is so much light.