Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/207

Quoting the only true God's epigraph,
"Feed my lambs, Peter!"—must consent to sit
Attesting with his pastoral ring and staff,
To such a picture of our Lady, hit
Off well by artist angels, though not half
As fair as Giotto would have painted it;
To such a vial, where a dead man's blood
Runs yearly warm beneath a churchman's finger;
To such a holy house of stone and wood,
Whereof a cloud of angels was the bringer
From Bethlehem to Loreto!—Were it good
For any pope on earth to be a flinger
Of stones against these high-niched counterfeits?
Apostates only are iconoclasts.
He dares not say, while this false thing abets
That true thing, "this is false!" he keepeth fasts
And prayers, as prayers and fasts were silver frets
To change a note upon a string that lasts,
And make a lie a virtue. Now, if he
Did more than this,—higher hoped and braver dared,—
I think he were a pope in jeopardy,
Or no pope rather! for his soul had barred
The vaulting of his life. And certainly,
If he do only this, mankind's regard
Moves on from him at once, to seek some new
Teacher and leader! He is good and great
According to the deeds a pope can do;
Most liberal, save those bonds; affectionate,
As princes may be; and, as priests are, true—
But only the ninth Pius after eight,
When all's praised most. At best and hopefullest,
He's pope—we want a man! his heart beats warm,
But, like the prince enchanted to the waist,