Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/199

193 And bear the wooden yoke as they were taught The first day. What ye want is light-indeed Not sunlight—(ye may well look up surprised To those unfathomable heavens that feed Your purple hills!)—but God's light organised In some high soul, crowned capable to lead The conscious people,—conscious and advised,— For if we lift a people like mere clay, It falls the same. We want thee, O unfound And sovran teacher!—if thy beard be grey Or black, we bid thee rise up from the ground And speak the word God giveth thee to say, Inspiring into all this people round, Instead of passion, thought, which pioneers All generous passion, purifies from sin, And strikes the hour for. Rise thou teacher! here's A crowd to make a nation!—best begin By making each a man, till all be peers Of earth's true patriots and pure martyrs in Knowing and daring. Best unbar the doors Which Peter's heirs keep locked so overclose They only let the mice across the floors, While every churchman dangles as he goes The great key at his girdle, and abhors In Christ's name, meekly. Open wide the house— Concede the entrance with Christ's liberal mind, And set the tables with His wine and bread. What! commune in "both kinds?" In every kind— Wine, wafer, love, hope, truth, unlimited, Nothing kept back. For, when a man is blind To starlight, will he see the rose is red? A bondsman shivering at a Jesuit's foot—