Jephthah and Other Mysteries

DEDICATION. ix Those dire words spoken, that thine hammer beat, Of fire and stee] and music, wrath god-worded, Consuming with immeasurable heat, The styes and kennels of priest and king, that girded The loins of many peoples, till the seat Of Hell was shaken to its deep, and herded Hosts of the tyrant trembled, faltered, fled, When none pursued but curses of men dead :— See, from the Calvary of the Son of Man, Where all the hopes of France were trodden under; See, from the crucifixion of Sedan, Thy thought the lightning,and thy word the thunder! See her supreme, kingly, republican, New France arisen, with her heart in sunder— Yet throned in Heaven on ever-burning wheels, Freedom resurgent, sealed with seven seals. The seal of Reason, made impregnable: The seal of Truth, immeasurably splendid : The seal of Brotherhood, man’s miracle: The seal of Peace, and Wisdom heaven-descended : The seal of Bitterness, cast down to Hell : The seal of Love, secure, not-to-be-rended : The seventh seal, Equality: that, broken, God sets his thunder and earthquake for a token. Now if on France the iron clangours close, Corruption’s desperate hand, and lurking treason, Or alien craft, or menace of strange blows Wrought of her own sons, in this bitter season :