The blood red ran from the Grey Monk's side,
His hands and feet were wounded wide,
His body bent, his arms and knees
Like to the roots of ancient trees.
When Satan first the black bow bent
And the moral law from the Gospel rent,
He forged the law into a sword,
And spilled the blood of mercy's Lord.
Titus! Constantine! Charlemaine!
O Voltaire! Rousseau! Gibbon! Vain
Your Grecian mocks and Roman sword
Against this image of his Lord;
For a tear is an intellectual thing;
And a sigh is the sword of an angel king;
And the bitter groan of a martyr's woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty's bow.
* * * * *
GEORGE CANNING
From THE PROGRESS OF MAN
[MATRIMONY IN OTAHEITE]
There laughs the sky, there zephyrs frolic train,
And light-winged loves, and blameless pleasures reign:
There, when two souls congenial ties unite,
No hireling bonzes chant the mystic rite;
Free every thought, each action unconfined,
And light those fetters which no rivets bind.
There in each grove, each sloping bank along,
And flowers and shrubs, and odorous herbs among,
Each shepherd clasped, with undisguised delight,
His yielding fair one—in the captain's sight;
Each yielding fair, as chance or fancy led,
Preferred new lovers to her sylvan bed.
Learn hence each nymph, whose free aspiring mind
Europe's cold laws, and colder customs bind;
O! learn what Nature's genial laws decree!
What Otaheite is, let Britain be!
* * * * *