Classic Poem

Thou art silent: nailed high in the darkness
Left alone from a sea that recedes
On thy gaunt gibbet lashed, and beyond thee
The blare of victorious creeds
Bowed down with the crown of thy choosing,
Caught up on thine hideous throne
O hast thou no charge for thy people
No word for thine own.

Five words show upon thee: five voices
More burning than blessing or ban
Words and fickle soothing; but bitter
Five wounds on the limbs of a Man
Five stars of thy royalty: real
And mighty for evil or good
Five seals of apocalypse, speaking
In silence and blood.

Words clamour and flatter and fool us;
They picture and falter and mask:
Men speak them, and do not the saying
Men hear them, and seek not the task.
We vision and rant for our pleasure
We question and double and allow.
Words are cheap, from the lips: it is dearer
The blood from the brow.