New-eyed, the men and maids saw, manifest,
The thoughts untold in one another’s breast:
Each wish displayed, and every passion learned
A look revealed them as a look discerned.
But sating Time with clouds o’ercast their eyes;
Desire was hidden, and the lips framed lies.
A goddess then, emerging from the dust,
Fair Virtue rose, the daughter of Distrust.
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Once Moses (in Scripture the story is told)
Compassion divine the petition deniedLest vision be blasted and body be fried.Yet this much, the Record informs us, took place:Jehovah, concealing His terrible face,Protruded His rear from behind a great rock,And edification ensued without shock.So godlike Salvini, lest worshipers die,Averting the blaze of his withering eye,Tempers his terrors and shows to the packOf feeble adorers…
Because you call yourself Knights Templar, and
Because you thus by vain pretense degradeTo paltry purposes traditions grand,Because to cheat the ignorant you sayThe thing that’s not, elated still to swayThe crass credulity of gaping foolsAnd women by fantastical display,Because no sacred fires did ever warmYour hearts, high knightly service to performA woman’s breast or coffer of a manThe only citadel you…
I step from the door with a shiver
And ask myself: What did I give her?The maiden a trifle gone-old,With the head of gray hair that was gold.Ah, well, I suppose ’twas a dollar,And doubtless the change is correct,Though it’s odd that it seems so much smallerThan what I’d a right to expect.But you pay when you dine, I reflect.So I walk up…
Freedom, as every schoolboy knows,
On every wind, indeed, that blowsI hear her yell.She screams whenever monarchs meet,And parliaments as well,To bind the chains about her feetAnd toll her knell.And when the sovereign people castThe votes they cannot spell,Upon the pestilential blastHer clamors swell.For all to whom the power’s givenTo sway or to compel,Among themselves apportion HeavenAnd give her Hell.Blary…
O, justice, you have fled, to dwell
Lest you should hang as high as-well,As Haman dangled.(I know not if his cord he twanged,Or the King proved forgiving.‘Tis hard to think of Haman hanged,And Haymond living.)Yes, as I said: in mortal fearTo Mexico you journeyed;For you were on your trial here,And ill attorneyed.The Law had long regarded youAs an extreme offender.Religion looked upon…
Dear Bruner, once we had a little talk
About the manner of your moral walk:How devious the trail you made in stalking,On level ground, your law-protected game‘Another’s Dollar’ is, I think, its name.Your crooked course more recently is notSo blamable; for, truly, you have stumbledOn evil days; and ’tis your luckless lotTo traverse spaces (with a spirit humbled,Contrite, dejected and divinely sad)Where, ’tis…