XV

Oh, that the free would stamp the impious name

Of King into the dust! or write it there,

So that this blot upon the page of fame

Were as a serpent's path, which the light air

Erases, and the flat sands close behind!

Ye the oracle have heard:

Lift the victory-flashing sword.

And cut the snaky knots of this foul gordian word,

Which, weak itself as stubble, yet can bind

Into a mass, irrefragably firm,

The axes and the rods which awe mankind;

The sound has poison in it, 'tis the sperm

Of what makes Life foul, cankerous, and abhorred;

Disdain not thou, at thine appointed term,

To set thine armed heel on this reluctant worm.