VIII.

A CHOICE.

FAITH is the spirit that makes man's body and blood
Sacred, to crown when life and death have ceased
His heavenward head for high fame's holy feast;
But as one swordstroke swift as wizard's rod
Made Cæsar carrion and made Brutus God,

Faith false or true, born patriot or born priest,
Smites into semblance or of man or beast

The soul that feeds on clean or unclean food.
Lo here the faith that lives on its own light,

Visible music; and lo there, the foul

Shape without shape, the harpy throat and howl.

Sword of the spirit of man! arise and smite,

And sheer through throat and claw and maw and

tongue

Kill the beast faith that lives on its own dung.

IX.

THE AUGURS.

LAY the corpse out on the altar; bid the elect
Slaves clear the ways of service spiritual,

Sweep clean the stalled soul's serviceable stall, Ere the chief priest's dismantling hands detect The ulcerous flesh of faith all scaled and specked Beneath the bandages that hid it all,

And with sharp edgetools oecumenical The leprous carcases of creeds dissect. As on the night ere Brutus grew divine The sick-souled augurs found their ox or swine Heartless; so now too by their after art In the same Rome, at an uncleaner shrine, Limb from rank limb, and putrid part from part, They carve the corpse-a beast without a heart.

XIII.

THE SAVIOUR OF SOCIETY.

I.

O SON of man, but of what man who knows? That broughtest healing on thy leathern wings To priests, and under them didst gather kings, And madest friends to thee of all man's foes ; Before thine incarnation, the tale goes,

Thy virgin mother, pure of sensual stings, Communed by night with angels of chaste things, And, full of grace, untimely felt the throes Of motherhood upon her, and believed

The obscure annunciation made when late

A raven-feathered raven-throated dove
Croaked salutation to the mother of love
Whose misconception was immaculate,
And when her time was come she misconceived.

II.

Thine incarnation was upon this wise,
Saviour; and out of east and west were led
To thy foul cradle by thy planet red
Shepherds of souls that feed their sheep with lies
Till the utter soul die as the body dies,

And the wise men that ask but to be fed

Though the hot shambles be their board and bed And sleep on any dunghill shut their eyes, So they lie warm and fatten in the mire :

And the high priest enthroned yet in thy name, Judas, baptised thee with men's blood for hire;

And now thou hangest nailed to thine own shame In sight of all time, but while heaven has flame Shalt find no resurrection from hell-fire.

December, 1869.

XIV.

MENTANA: SECOND ANNIVERSARY.

Est-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve,
Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve?
La Légende des Siècles :-Ratbert.

I.

By the dead body of Hope, the spotless lamb
Thou threwest into the high priest's slaughtering-

room,

And by the child Despair born red therefrom As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram With spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam,

Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb, Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb, Born to break down with catapult and ram Man's builded towers of promise, and with breath And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death : O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain, And by that child mismothered,-dog, by all Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal,

With what curse shall man curse thee back again?