44 THE FATAL FORCE
THE LEPER.
I did not fall in battle; but my queen
Saw on my breast the livid mark of sin
That was the leprosy of her own soul,
And drove me forth to compass my disgrace
With infamies ineffable.
PACHAD.
I know;
I shall avenge. The old gods come again.
THE LEPER.
Nay! I have lived through all these barren years,
Discrowned, diseased, abominable, cast out,
And meditating on the event of life,
And that initiated Hope that we,
Royal, inherit, of the final life,
Nor newer incarnation, and possessed
Of strange powers, who have moved about this court
Loathed, and unrecognised, and shunned, have thought
That the old bondage was as terrible
As thine incestuous mother’s iron hand,
Rending the entrails of her growing realm
To seek her bloody fate, whose violence
Even now makes the abyss of wrath divine
Boil in the deep. Thou mayest be that great
Osiris, bidding man’s high soul be free,
Justified in its own higher self, made pure
And perfect in its own eyes, being a god.
Destroy this priestcraft. We are priests indeed,