The Fire i' the Flint

The sudden thrust of speech is no mean test
Of man or woman. Caesar, with his cry
Of anguish,—Pilate, putting justice by,—
Into three words a human soul compressed;
Three broke from Galileo's brooding breast;
And Desdemona, instant to reply,
"Nobody—I myself," is by that lie
In all her purity made manifest.

But Tito, Tito, standing so secure,—
Tito, the idol of the market-place,
Who muttering to himself, "Some madman, sure!"
Could look his stricken father in the face,
From a yet deeper well his falsehood drew,
And lived more base than that young wife died true.