XVI.

APOLOGIA.

IF wrath embitter the sweet mouth of song,

And make the sunlight fire before those eyes That would drink draughts of peace from the unsoiled skies,

The wrongdoing is not ours, but ours the wrong,

Who hear too loud on earth and see too long

The grief that dies not with the groan that dies,
Till the strong bitterness of pity cries

Within us, that our anger should be strong.
For chill is known by heat and heat by chill,
And the desire that hope makes love to still

By the fear flying beside it or above,

A falcon fledged to follow a fledgeling dove,
And by the fume and flame of hate of ill
The exuberant light and burning bloom of love.

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?