Until we entered to hale Him out,
And found no more than an old
Uncleanly image girded about
The loins with scarlet and gold.
Him we o’erset with the butts of our spears—
Him and His vast designs—
To be the scorn of our muleteers
And the jest of our halted lines.
By the picket-pins that the dogs defile,
In the dung and the dust He lay,
Till the priests ran and chattered awhile
And wiped Him and took Him away.
Hushing the matter before it was known,
They returned to our fathers afar,
And hastily set Him afresh on His throne
Because He had won us the war.
Wherefore with knees that feign to quake—
Bent head and shaded brow—
To this dead dog, for my father’s sake,
In Rimmon’s House I bow.
Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press
Transcriber’s Notes
Transcriber remedied a missing left parenthesis.
The text contains many unbalanced single quotation marks. This appears to have been done deliberately.