Gibbon arose with a lash of steel,
And Voltaire with a wracking wheel;
The schools in clouds of learning roll'd,
Arose with war in iron and gold
"Thou lazy monk!" they sound afar,
"In vain condemning glorious war,
And in your cell you shall ever dwell:
Rise, War, and bind him in his cell."
The blood red ran from the grey monk's side,
His hands and feet were wounded wide,
His body bent, his arms and knees
Like to the roots of ancient trees.[1]
When Satan first the black bow bent
And the Moral Law from the Gospel rent,
He forged the Law into a Sword,
And spill'd the blood of Mercy's Lord.
Titus! Constantine! Charlemagne!
O Voltaire! Rousseau! Gibbon! vain
Your Grecian mocks and Roman sword
Against this image of his Lord.
For a Tear is an intellectual thing;
And a Sigh is the sword of an Angel King;
And the bitter groan of a martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.
- ↑ This and the final stanza occur also in the poem entitled The Grey Monk (Vide anteà, pp. 143-144).—Ed.
