Thou threatenest if I dare behold Thy face,
Nor cower obsequious in my native place?
I see Thy doom-engraving fiery finger!
I hear Thy loud anathema—and linger!
Tho' jealous, Thou arraignest for high treason
Our Babylonian banquets of the reason.
We, scowling outcasts, branded sons of Cain,
Hear with a vast, ineffable disdain
Sleek minions of prosperity prate peace!
While wrung upon the rack we claim release,
Or with gnawn entrails clench firm teeth, nor cry;
Let one call to us from the abyss of agony!
Speak, Jesus!—lo! we listen ere we die.
II.—Yea.
And what if all the death, and all the dolor
Do but imbue with life of lustrous colour
Alien natures? if the blood we bled
Grow substance of another heart full-fed?
Thrice aureoled the sacrificial Lamb,
Rolled in a fair victorious oriflamme
Of His own slaughter! fiery pangs of glory,
Wherein a life dissolves to blend one story
With God's world-triumph, so alone fulfilling
True personal being, through the ordeal killing
Mere individual semblance of an hour;
