The Wild Knight and Other Poems/The World’s Lover

My eyes are full of lonely mirth:
 * Reeling with want and worn with scars,

For pride of every stone on earth,
 * I shake my spear at all the stars.

A live bat beats my crest above,
 * Lean foxes nose where I have trod,

And on my naked face the love
 * Which is the loneliness of God.

Outlawed: since that great day gone by--
 * When before prince and pope and queen

I stood and spoke a blasphemy--
 * 'Behold the summer leaves are green.'

They cursed me: what was that to me
 * Who in that summer darkness furled,

With but an owl and snail to see,
 * Had blessed and conquered all the world?

They bound me to the scourging-stake,
 * They laid their whips of thorn on me;

I wept to see the green rods break,
 * Though blood be beautiful to see.

Beneath the gallows' foot abhorred
 * The crowds cry 'Crucify!' and 'Kill!'

Higher the priests sing, 'Praise the Lord,
 * The warlock dies'; and higher still

Shall heaven and earth hear one cry sent
 * Even from the hideous gibbet height,

'Praise to the Lord Omnipotent,
 * The vultures have a feast to-night.'