Page:Prometheus Bound, and other poems.djvu/203

Rh With one same mother-voice and face, (that what They speak may be invincible,) the sins Of earth's tormentors before God, the just, Until the unconscious thunder-bolt begins To loosen in His grasp.

And yet we must Beware, and mark the natural kiths and kins Of circumstance and office, and distrust A rich man reasoning in a poor man's hut; A poet who neglects pure truth to prove Statistic fact; a child who leaves a rut For the smooth road; a priest who vows his glove Exhales no grace; a prince who walks a-foot; A woman who has sworn she will not love; Ninth Pius sitting in Seventh Gregory's chair, With Andrea Doria's forehead!

Count what goes To making up a Pope, before he wear That triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes Which went to make the Popedom,—the despair Of free men, good men, wise men; the dread shows Of women's faces, by the faggot's flash, Tossed out, to the minutest stir and throb Of the white lips, least tremble of a lash, To glut the red stare of the licensed mob! The short mad cries down oubliettes,—the plash So horribly far off! priests, trained to rob; And kings that, like encouraged nightmares, sate On nations' hearts most heavily distressed With monstrous sights and apophthegms of fate.