THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY.
(Extracted from a Fragmentary Poem, entitled 'The Everlasting Gospel.')
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The vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.
Thine is the fare of all mankind,—
Mine speaks in parables to the blind;
Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
Thy Heaven-doors are my Hell-gates.
Socrates taught what Meletus
Loathed as a nation's bitterest curse,
And Caiaphas was in his own mind
A benefactor to mankind.
Both read the Bible day and night;
But thou read'st black where I read white.
*****
Jesus sat in Moses' chair;
They brought the trembling woman there;
Moses commands she be stoned to death;
What was the sound of Jesus' breath?
He laid His hand on Moses' law:
The ancient heavens in silent awe.
Writ with curses from pole to pole.
All away began to roll.
The earth trembling and naked lay,
In secret bed of mortal clay.
And she heard the breath of God
As she heard it by Eden's flood:—
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