But first offences needs must come! Even now[115:1] (Black Hell laughs horrible--to hear the scoff!) 160 Thee to defend, meek Galilaean! Thee And thy mild laws of Love unutterable, Mistrust and Enmity have burst the bands Of social peace: and listening Treachery lurks With pious fraud to snare a brother's life; 165 And childless widows o'er the groaning land Wail numberless; and orphans weep for bread! Thee to defend, dear Saviour of Mankind! Thee, Lamb of God! Thee, blameless Prince of Peace! From all sides rush the thirsty brood of War!-- 170 Austria, and that foul Woman of the North, The lustful murderess of her wedded lord! And he, connatural Mind![115:2] whom (in their songs So bards of elder time had haply feigned) Some Fury fondled in her hate to man, 175 Bidding her serpent hair in mazy surge Lick his young face, and at his mouth imbreathe Horrible sympathy! And leagued with these Each petty German princeling, nursed in gore! Soul-hardened barterers of human blood![116:1] 180 Death's prime slave-merchants! Scorpion-whips of Fate! Nor least in savagery of holy zeal, Apt for the yoke, the race degenerate, Whom Britain erst had blushed to call her sons! Thee to defend the Moloch Priest prefers 185 The prayer of hate, and bellows to the herd, That Deity, Accomplice Deity In the fierce jealousy of wakened wrath Will go forth with our armies and our fleets To scatter the red ruin on their foes! 190 O blasphemy! to mingle fiendish deeds With blessedness! Lord of unsleeping Love,[116:2] From everlasting Thou! We shall not die. These, even these, in mercy didst thou form, Teachers of Good through Evil, by brief wrong 195 Making Truth lovely, and her future might Magnetic o'er the fixed untrembling heart.