Classic Poem

For a space his voice was silent —
In his hands his face was buried,
While the elemental Darkness
Clung about him like a cloud;

Wonderingly I gazed upon him,
For I knew that he was weeping —
Till, at last, again I saw him
Pointing angrily to Heaven.

Woefully, with snake-like glimmers,
Clung the coils of his black raiment,
Scornfully he laugh'd, and round him
Glimmer'd with a serpent's eyes.

" Let Him rise, and keep His promise!
Let Him wake who sleeps for ever!
King of poets and of dreamers
Was this moonstruck Son of God!

" Him I fronted in the desert,
Pointing out His mad delusion, —
Fool, He wrapt His rags about Him, —
" ╬ú╬▒¤ä╬▒╬¢╬▒, ╬┐¤Ç╬╣¤â¤ë ╬╝╬┐╬¢! "

" Feeble, gentle Thaumaturgist!
What knew He of God the Father?
Pityingly I bent above Him, —
As He swung upon the Cross!

" Yea, and blest Him, little knowing
How the seed of His delusion,
Sown in love and human kindness,
Should be reap'd on fields of blood.

" I, the Devil, as they style me,
Have dispensed a benediction!
He, the Christ, self-styled, self-chosen,
Has become a winged curse!

" Dead, His crown of thorns beside Him,
In His sepulchre He slumbers, —
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes,
Never can He wake again!

" Yet the lies His folly father'd
Live and multiply above Him:
Lie the First! " A life hereafter
Shall redeem the wrongs of this! "

" Lie the Second! " Love thy neighbour
As thyself! " The dream, the fancy!
Were it true, each soul's existence
Would be proved by self-negation.

" Lie the Third! " About the morrow
Take no heed — sufficient ever
Is the evil of the moment —
Take no trouble to redress it! "

" Lie the Fourth! — " Lord God the Father
Loves His children and redeems them " —
He? — the loveless, pulseless, deathless,
Impotent Omnipotence!

" Well, He staked His life, and lost it!
Flock on flock of sheep have follow'd
That bell-wether of the masses
Into darkness and despair!

" Eighteen hundred years of Europe
Have been wasted 'spite my warning:
" Fools, one life is all God grants you,
Sweep your houses, heed your drains!

" " Love each other, help each other,
Juggle not with dreams and phrases —
Make ephemeral existence
Beautiful, in spite of God!

" " Pass from knowledge on to knowledge
Ever higher and supremer,
Clothe these bones with power and pity,
Live and love, altho' ye die!

" " Fear not, love not, and revere not
What transcends your understanding!
Keep your reverence and affection
For the brethren whom ye know! "

" Fools, they heard but did not heed me!
Far away from 'mong the vapours
Came the sound of their bell-wether
Tinkling to the same old tune!

" While the poets, priests, and prophets
Gather'd, crying " Listen! listen! "
To the church-bells' ululation
Rose the Christian holocaust!

" While the haggard priests and prophets
Pray'd aloud and cried for wonders,
Christs of Cyprus and Tyana
Heal'd the sick and raised the dead.

" God had conquered, with His darkness
Blotting out my stars of promise;
Three times to the mad Plotinus
He revealed His Sphinx-like features.

" God had conquer'd, Death was reigning
O'er the lands of Light and Morning;
Plato's music turned to discord
In the mouth of Porphyry.

" Thro' the world a spectral Shepherd
Walk'd, knee-deep in blood of martyrs, —
Death the Christ, whom men call'd Jesus,
Till they crown'd him Pope, at Rome!