Classic Poem

Think not that I blaspheme
Because I worship not this God of thine;
Because I bend not, either in deed or dream,
To that dread Force Divine.

Atheist thou callest me,
" ╬æ╬©╬Á╬┐¤é, he who stands apart from God,
While priests and poets name Him fearfully
And tremble at His nod!

Poets and priests have lied
From immemorial Time, and still they lie;
Close to the ground they watch, dull-soul'd, dull-eyed,
The Lord of Hosts go by!

Not thus in far-off days
The Titan stood, fronting the stars and sun —
Erect he watch'd, with neither prayer nor praise,
The inevitable One!

" ╬æ╬©╬Á╬┐¤é, too, was he
Who everywhere the Soul of Pity saw —
The God he prayed to, yonder in Galilee,
Was not your God of Law!

He dream'd as atheists do
Of love that triumphs on, tho' undertrod;
He worshipt not the gloomy God o' the Jew,
Nor even Nature's God!

The Law, the Might, the Lord,
Won not the worship of the Crucified, —
Murmuring another name, a gentler word,
The last Great Dreamer died.

Alas, he could not heal
The woes of Nature, or subdue her strife, —
But in sublime revolt he made men feel
The piteousness of Life! ...

It is not reverence
To kneel in Temples priests and slaves upraise:
The Law which sweeps us hither and sweeps us hence
Heeds not our prayer or praise.

It is not blasphemy
To front, Prometheus-like, Eternal Fate!
The God to whom your priests now bend the knee
Left Jesus desolate!

So died he, a?e??,
Seeking in vain to break the Tyrant's rod;
Tormented, like Prometheus, on his Cross,
By all the slaves of God!