Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/73

 Rh ::Was Jesus born of a virgin pure
 * With narrow soul and looks demure?
 * If He intended to take on sin
 * His mother should an harlot have been,
 * Just such a one as Magdalen
 * With seven devils in her pen.
 * Or were Jew virgins still more cursed,
 * And with more sucking devils nursed?
 * Or what was it that He took on
 * That He might bring salvation?
 * A body subject to be tempted,
 * From neither pain nor grief exempted, —
 * Or such a body as might not feel
 * The passions that with sinners deal?
 * Yes, but they say He never fell.
 * Ask Caiaphas, for he can tell.
 * "He mocked the Sabbath, and he mocked
 * The Sabbath's God, and he unlocked
 * The evil spirits from their shrines,
 * And turned fishermen to divines,
 * O'erturned the tent of secret sins,
 * And all its golden cords and pins;
 * 'Tis the bloody shrine of war,
 * Poured around from star to star, —
 * Halls of justice, hating vice,
 * Where the devil combs his lice.
 * He turned the devils into swine
 * That he might tempt the Jews to dine;
 * Since when a pig has got a look
 * That for a Jew may be mistook.
 * ' Obey your parents.' What says he?
 * ' Woman, what have I to do with thee?
 * No earthly parents I confess,
 * I am doing my father's business.'
 * He scorned earth's parents, scorned earth's God
 * And mocked the one and the other rod;
 * His seventy disciples sent
 * Against religion and government,
 * They by the sword of Justice fell,
 * And him their cruel murderer tell.
 * He left his father's trade to roam
 * A wandering vagrant without home,
 * And thus he others' labours stole
 * That he might live above control.
 * The publicans and harlots he
 * Selected for his company,
 * And from the adultress turned away
 * God's righteous law that lost its prey."