The Star in the West

152 THE STAR IN THE WEST The vale is black with priests . They fight , Wild beasts , for food , The orphan's gold , the widow's right , The virgin's snood . All in their maws are crammed within the night That hides their chosen wood , Where through the blackness sounds the sickening noise Of cannibals that gloat on monstrous joys.? Feeding perhaps first on man's body , the priest soon found , after investing his victim with an immortal soul , that the soul would form an excellent basis for blackmail , enabling man to buy off the terrors of hell through the medium of the priest who held the keys of heaven : still death reigns , and God and priests are fed , Man's blood for wine , man's flesh for meat and bread .? And these priests are not dead yet . As the human race throve so did their gods , the old savage of man's early thoughts grew , and growing became more evil , as their gods so were men , and as men so were their gods , the one continually acting and reacting on the other : Of obscene deities and apish men , Rivalling their gods in petty filthiness.3 Gods sprang from gods : For the old gods indeed go down to death , But the new gods arise from rottenness .4 The first cause , a pervading terror , was grand in its wilfulness compared with the degraded images which 1 Mysteries : Lyrical and Dramatic , vol . i, p . 126 . 2 Ibid . vol . i, p . 106 . 3 The Tale of Archais , vol . i, p . 19 . 4 The Fatal Force , vol . i, p . 143 .