The World’s Tragedy

XLII PROEM. For as I love with spirit and with sense I nauseate at this crawling crapulence, Our whole state, summed in one supreme enigma, Solved (in a second) by a simple Σ. Monstrous conjunctions with black man and brute Level our ladies with the prostitute : Our spinsters chaste in criminal abortion, And matrons with the pox for marriage portion ; Husbands who pimp all day for their young wives, Athletes from Oxford, pathic all their lives, Who sport the “ so ” coat, the sotadic necktie, And lisp their filthy pun “ Mens conscia recti ” ! Priests who are celibates — outside the choir ! Maidens who rave in Lesbian desire ; The buck of sixty, cunning as a trapper, Stalking the pig-tailed, masturbating flapper ; The creeping Jesus — Caution ! we may shock it ! — With one hand through his torn-out breeches pocket ; Flagellates shrieking in our streets and schools, Our men all hogs, and all our women ghouls : — This is our England, pious dame and prude, Who calls me blasphemous, unchaste, and rude ! Come to sweet air, poor sirens of the stews !