Flower o' the thorn :: :: University of Virginia Library

PROPHET of the worlds within, schoolman and priest their worst
Have wrought to make thy name a synonym of hate,
Thy name that wouldst on Love have based a new estate,
Where the world's first the last should be, the last the first;
And those, who, after thee, o'er all the earth disperst,
Thy word for standard bore, thy doctrine for breed-bate
Uprearing and thy cross for battle-axe of Fate,
Have won well nigh to make thy memory accurst.
—But we, who through the web discern thy thought divine,
Which they have woven about thy superhuman shape,
Leaving the priest to lie, the schoolman ay or no
To argue and the fond fool folk to grin and gape,
To thy remembrance mild a holier place assign
Than to the man-made Gods in Heaven that come and go.