 | Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] |  |
80
TERMINUS.
Upon the roll of folly and of crimeThere lives a fact, for intellectual scorn—
But more for Christian pity, so forlorn
And abject stands it in the stream of Time!
The Imperial mandate ran, that, on a day,
Held sacred to the Lord of limitations,
The Christian faith should have its conquering way
Barred up, and so the disenchanted nations
Go back to Jove and Phœbus and the fanes;
Messiah! and the block-god Terminus!
O stolid humour! O elaborate pains,
All lost and wasted! for it is not thus
That truth is stopt; Saints bled, but idols fell,
The Church bowed eastward still, and all was well.
| Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] | |