What cometh to John of the wicked thumb?

IX

Ha ha, John plucketh now at his rose
To rid himself of a sorrow at heart!
Lo,--petal on petal, fierce rays unclose;
Anther on anther, sharp spikes outstart;
And with blood for dew, the bosom boils;
And a gust of sulphur is all its smell;
And lo, he is horribly in the toils
Of a coal-black giant flower of hell!

CHORUS.

What maketh heaven, That maketh hell. 80

X

So, as John called now, through the fire amain,
On the Name, he had cursed with, all his life--
To the Person, he bought and sold again--
For the Face, with his daily buffets rife--
Feature by feature It took its place:
And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark,
At the steady whole of the Judge's face--
Died. Forth John's soul flared into the dark.

SUBJOINETH THE ABBOT DEODAET.

God help all poor souls lost in the dark!

NOTES:
"The Heretic's Tragedy" is an Interlude imagined in the
manner of the Middle Ages, and typically representing
this period of human development in its quaint piety and
prejudice, its childish delight in cruelty, and its cumulative
legend-making during the course of two centuries as reflected
through the Flemish nature. It is supposed to be
sung by an abbot, a choir-singer, and a chorus, in celebration
of the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay, last
Grand Master of the wealthy and powerful secular order
of Knights Templar, which came into rivalry with the
Church after the Crusades and was finally suppressed by
Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V, Molay's
burning at Paris in 1314 being a final scene in their
discomfiture and the Church's triumph.

8. Plagal-cadence: a closing progression of chords in
which the sub-dominant or chord on the fourth degree of
the scale precedes the tonic or chord on the first degree
of the scale. The name arises from the modes used in
early church music called Plagal Modes, which were a
transposition of the authentic modes beginning on the
fourth degree of the authentic modes.

12. Bought of... Aldabrod, etc.: Clement's arraignment
of Jacques or John being that the riches won piously
by the order during the Crusades, he had not scrupled to
sell again to Saladin, the Sultan, who is portrayed by