XXIV

To making up a Pope, before he wear

That triple crown. We pass the world-wide throes

      Which went to make the Popedom,—the despair

Of free men, good men, wise men; the dread shows

      Of women's faces, by the faggot's flash,

Tossed out, to the minutest stir and throb

      Of the white lips, least tremble of a lash,

To glut the red stare of the licensed mob!

      The short mad cries down oubliettes,—the plash

So horribly far off! priests, trained to rob;

      And kings that, like encouraged nightmares, sate

On nations' hearts most heavily distressed

      With monstrous sights and apophthegms of fate.

We pass these things,—because "the times" are prest

      With necessary charges of the weight

Of all the sin; and "Calvin, for the rest,

      Made bold to burn Servetus—Ah, men err!"—

And, so do Churches! which is all we mean

      To bring to proof in any register

Of theological fat kine and lean—

      So drive them back into the pens! refer

Old sins with long beards, and "I wis and ween,"

      Entirely to the times—the times—the times!

Nor ever ask why this preponderant,

      Infallible, pure Church could set her chimes

Most loudly then, just then; most jubilant,

      Precisely then—when mankind stood in crimes

Full heart-deep, and Heaven's judgments were not scant.

      Inquire still less, what signifies a Church

Of perfect inspiration and pure laws,

      Who burns the first man with a brimstone torch,

And grinds the second, bone by bone, because

      The times, forsooth, are used to rack and scorch!

What is a holy Church, unless she awes

      The times down from their sins? Did Christ select

Such amiable times, to come and teach

      Love to, and mercy? Why, the world were wrecked,

If every mere great man, who lives to reach

      A little leaf of popular respect,

Attained not simply by some special breach

      In his land's customs,—by some precedence

In thought and act—which, having proved him higher

      Than his own times, proved too his competence

Of helping them to wonder and aspire.