Gross, with the fumes of incense full, With parasites tickled, with slaves begirt, He strutted, a cock, he bellowed, a bull, He rolled him, a dog, in dirt. And dog, bull, cook, was he, fanged, horned, plumed; Original man, as philosophers vouch; Carnivorous, cannibal; length-long exhumed, Frightfully living and armed to devour; The primitive weapons of prey in his pouch; The bait, the line and the hook: To feed on his fellows intent. God of the Danaé shower, He had but to follow his bent. He battened on fowl not safely hutched, On sheep astray from the crook; A lure for the foolish in fold: To carrion turning what flesh he touched. And O the grace of his air, As he at the goblet sips, A centre of girdles loosed, With their grisly label, Sold! Credulous hears the fidelity swear, Which has roving eyes over yielded lips: To-morrow will fancy himself the seduced, The stuck in a treacherous slough, Because of his faith in a purchased pair, False to a vinous vow. In his glory of banquet strip him bare, And what is the creature we view? Our pursy Apollo Apollyon’s tool; A small one, still of the crew By serpent Apollyon blest: His plea in apology, blindfold Fool. A fool surcharged, propelled, unwarned; Not viler, you hear him protest: Of a popular countenance not incorrect. But deeds are the picture in essence, deeds Paint him the hooved and homed, Despite the poor pother he pleads, And his look of a nation’s elect. We have him, our quarry confessed! And scan him: the features inspect Of that bestial multiform: cry, Corroborate I, O Samian Sage! The book of thy wisdom, proved On me, its last hieroglyph page, Alive in the horned and hooved? Thou! will he make reply. Thus has the plenary purse Done often: to do will engage Anew upon all of thy like, or worse. And now is thy deepest regret To be man, clean rescued from beast: From the grip of the Sorcerer, Gold, Celestially released. But now from his cavernous hold, Free may thy soul be set, As a child of the Death and the Life, to learn, Refreshed by some bodily sweat, The meaning of either in turn, What issue may come of the two:— A morn beyond mornings, beyond all reach Of emotional arms at the stretch to enfold: A firmament passing our visible blue. To those having nought to reflect it, ’tis nought; To those who are misty, ’tis mist on the beach From the billow withdrawing; to those who see Earth, our mother, in thought, Her spirit it is, our key.