The Winged Beetle

IN MEMORIAM 143 Are you ready, sweet ? Then fold Once your arms about me, cling Close and clip me as old— In the presence of the King That awaits us. Love is bold. We are witness—by our fate— To one poet—is there one ? That beyond the miry weight Of the fog there shines a sun ! Be he comforted thereat ! . . . . . . Yea ! I chant your mastery ! In the hag-ridden, mange-bitten, Sodden, superstitious sty That John Milton made of Britain In the twentieth century, Two in blood the runes have written— How to love and how to die ! Praise, O Martyrs ! Not one bead Of your strong blood but shall thrill In our hearts, and burn and breed Myriad children to your will. We will damn the coward’s creed, And the eunuch’s squeaking still, Till the world is yours indeed ! Yea ! at last the spell shall break Wherewith Christ and Cromwell bound us