He thinks of Thomas Jefferson—but then
Jefferson was a deist, took the Bible
And cut out everything but Jesus' words.
"Yet I can speak on what was good in him,
His work for liberty, the Declaration,
And close my eyes to all his heterodoxy."
Then something of this plan crept like a snake
Into his brain, he petted it with hands:
Be ye as wise as serpents, and as doves
Harmless, he smiled—and went to work again,