IV
Should I take pleasure in the fond perfume
That curls about my altars? in the throats
That chant my glory in the decent gloom
Of lofty ministers? Shall the blood of goats
And bulls and men send up a fragrant steam
To me, who am? Shall shriek of pythoness
Or wail of augur move this dreadful dream
To some less melancholy consciousness?
I have created men, who made them gods
Of their own excrements, and worshipped them.
I cannot match these calculating clods
Who twist themselves a faecal diadem
From all the thorny thought that plague them most;
Break wind, and call upon the Holy Ghost.
That curls about my altars? in the throats
That chant my glory in the decent gloom
Of lofty ministers? Shall the blood of goats
And bulls and men send up a fragrant steam
To me, who am? Shall shriek of pythoness
Or wail of augur move this dreadful dream
To some less melancholy consciousness?
I have created men, who made them gods
Of their own excrements, and worshipped them.
I cannot match these calculating clods
Who twist themselves a faecal diadem
From all the thorny thought that plague them most;
Break wind, and call upon the Holy Ghost.
— 86 —
