When in revulsion I detest myself

Thus heartily, myself with myself appal,

And in this mortal rubbish delve and delve,

A dustman damned—perhaps the original

Virtue I’d thought so snugly buried so

May yet be found, else never to be found,

And thus exhumed into the light may grow

After this cruel harrowing of the ground.

For as when I have spoken spitefully

Of this or that friend, piling ill on il,

Remembrance cleans his image and I see

The pure and touching good no taunt could kill,

So I may yet recover by this bad

Research that good I scarcely dreamt I had.