for, who smiled
in thy face."
Of such is the kingdom--he said it--of heaven: and the heavenly
word
Shall live when religion is dead, and when falsehood is dumb shall
be heard.
And the message of James and of John was as Christ's and as love's
own call:
But wrath passed sentence thereon when Annas replied in Paul.
The dark old God who had slain him grew one with the Christ he
slew,
And poison was rank in the grain that with growth of his gospel
grew.
And the blackness of darkness brightened: and red in the heart of
the flame
Shone down, as a blessing that lightened, the curse of a new God's
name.
Through centuries of burning and trembling belief as a signal it
shone,
Till man, soul-sick of dissembling, bade fear and her frauds
begone.
God Cerberus yelps from his throats triune: but his day, which was
night,
Is quenched, with its stars and the notes of its night-birds, in
silence and light.
The flames of its fires and the psalms of their psalmists are
darkened and dumb:
Strong winter has withered the palms of his angels, and stricken
them numb.
God, father of lies, God, son of perdition, God, spirit of ill,
Thy will that for ages was done is undone as a dead God's will.
Not Mahomet's sword could slay thee, nor Borgia's or Calvin's
praise:
But the scales of the spirit that weigh thee are weighted with
truth, and it slays.
The song of the day of thy fury, when nature and death shall quail,
Rings now as the thunders of Jewry, the ghost of a dead world's
tale.
That day and its doom foreseen and foreshadowed on earth, when
thou,
Lord God, wast lord of the keen dark season, are sport for us now.
Thy claws were clipped and thy fangs plucked out by the hands that
slew
Men, lovers of man, whose pangs bore witness if truth were true.
Man crucified rose again from the sepulchre builded to be
No grave for the souls of the men who denied thee, but, Lord, for
thee.

When Bruno's spirit aspired from the flames that thy servants fed,
The spirit of faith was fired to consume thee and leave thee dead.
When the light of the sunlike eyes whence laughter lightened and