Forgiving trespasses and sins Lest Babylon with cruel Og,

With moral and self-righteous law, Should crucify in Satan's synagogue.

What are those golden builders doing
Near mournful, ever-weeping Paddington,
Standing above that mighty ruin
Where Satan the first victory won.

Where Albion slept beneath the fatal tree, And the Druid's golden knife

Rioted in human gore,

In offerings of human life.

They groan'd aloud on London stone,
They groan'd aloud on Tyburn's brook :
Albion gave his deadly groan,
And all the Atlantic mountains shook.

Albion's spectre from his loins Tore forth in all the pomp of war; Satan his name; in flames of fire He stretch'd his Druid pillars far.

Jerusalem fell from Lambeth's vale, Down thro' Poplar and Old Bow;

Thro' Malden and across the sea, In war and howling, death and woe.

The Rhine was red with human blood; The Danube roll'd a purple tide:

On the Euphrates Satan stood, And over Asia stretch'd his pride.

He wither'd up sweet Zion's hill From every nation of the earth;

He wither'd up Jerusalem's gates, And in a dark land gave her birth.

He wither'd up the human form, By laws of sacrifice for sin;

Till it became a mortal worm; But oh! translucent all within.

The Divine vision still was seen, Still was the human form divine, Weeping in weak and mortal clayO Jesus, still the form was thine.

And thine the human face, and thine The human hands and feet and breath, Entering thro' the gates of birth, And passing thro' the gates of death.

And oh thou Lamb of God, whom I Slew in my dark self-righteous pride, Art thou return'd to Albion's land, And is Jerusalem thy bride?

Come to my arms and never more
Depart; but dwell for ever here;
Create my spirit to thy love;
Subdue my spectre to thy fear.

Spectre of Albion! warlike fiend!
In clouds of blood and ruin roll'd,
I here reclaim thee as my own,
My self-hood, Satan! arm'd in gold.

Is this thy soft family-love,
Thy cruel patriarchal pride;
Planting thy family above,
Destroying all the world beside?

A man's worst enemies are those Of his own house and family; And he who makes his law a curse, By his own law shall surely die.

In my Exchanges every land Shall walk, and mine in every land, Mutual shall build Jerusalem, Both heart in heart and hand in hand.

I

TO THE DEISTS.

SAW a monk of Charlemagne
Arise before my sight,

I talk'd with the grey monk as we stood

In beams of infernal light.

Gibbon arose with a lash of steel,
And Voltaire with a wracking wheel;
The schools in clouds of learning roll'd,
Arose with war in iron and gold

"Thou lazy monk!" they sound afar,
"In vain condemning glorious war,
And in your cell you shall ever dwell:
Rise, War, and bind him in his cell."

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 spill'd the blood of Mercy's Lord.

Titus! Constantine! Charlemagne !
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.

* This and the final stanza occur also in the poem entitled The Grey Monk (Vide anteà, pp. 143-144).—Ed.

I

TO THE CHRISTIANS.

GIVE you the end of a golden string,
Only wind it into a ball;

It will lead you in at Heaven's gate
Built in Jerusalem's wall.

England! awake, awake, awake!
Jerusalem, thy sister, calls,

Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death,
And close her from thy ancient walls?

Thy hills and valleys felt her feet
Gently upon their bosoms move;
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion's ways;
Then was a time of joy and love.

And now the time returns again :
Our souls exult, and London's towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell

In England's green and pleasant bowers.

Each man is in his spectre's power
Until the arrival of that hour,
When his Humanity awake,

And cast his spectre into the lake.