Page:New poems and variant readings, Stevenson, 1918.djvu/53

Rh I see strange days for thee and thine, O priest,

And how your doctrines, fallen one by one,

Shall furnish at the annual feast

The puppet-booth of fun.

Stand on your putrid ruins—stand,

White neck-clothed bigot, fixedly the same,

Cruel with all things but the hand,

Inquisitor in all things but the name.

Back, minister of Christ and source of fear—

We cherish freedom—back with thee and thine

From this unruly time of year,

The Feast of Valentine.

Blood thou mayest spare; but what of tears?

But what of riven households, broken faith—

Bywords that cling through all men's years

And drag them surely down to shame and death?

Stand back, O cruel man, O foe of youth,

And let such men as hearken not thy voice

Press freely up the road to truth,

The King's highway of choice.