Page:The ascent of man by Blind, Mathilde.djvu/52


 * Where, for Conscience' sake,
 * Heretics burn chaunting at the stake.


 * Subterranean secrets of the prison,

Throbs of anguish in the crushing cell.
 * Torture-chambers of the Inquisition

Are the Church's antidotes to Hell.
 * Better rack them here,
 * Mutilate and sear,
 * Than their souls should go
 * To the place of everlasting woe.


 * And a lurid universal night,

Lit by quenchless fires for unquenched sages,
 * Thick with spectral broods that shun the light,

Looms impervious o'er the stifled ages
 * Where the blameless wise
 * Fall a sacrifice,
 * Fall as fell of old
 * The unspotted firstlings of the fold.