Shelley comes out even more squarely than Byron against conventional religion. In _Julian and Maddalo_, he causes Byron to say of him, You were ever still Among Christ's flock a perilous infidel. Shelley helped to foster the tradition, too, that the poet was persecuted by the church. In _Rosalind and Helen_, the hero was hated by the clergy, For he made verses wild and queer Of the strange creeds priests hold so dear, and this predilection for making them wild and queer resulted in Lionel's death, for The ministers of misrule sent Seized on Lionel and bore His chained limbs to a dreary tower, For he, they said, from his mind had bent Against their gods keen blasphemy. The most notable illustration of this phase of Shelley's thought is _The Revolt of Islam,_ wherein the poets, Laon and Cythna, are put to death by the priests, who regard them as their worst enemies. Burns, also, took a certain pleasure in unorthodoxy, and later poets have gloried in his attitude. Swinburne, in particular, praises his daring, in that he Smote the God of base men's choice At God's own gate. [Footnote: _Burns._] Young poets have not yet lost their taste for religious persecution. It is a great disappointment to them to find it difficult to strike fire from the faithful in these days. Swinburne in his early poetry denounced the orthodox God with such vigor that he roused a momentary flutter of horror in the church, but nowadays the young poet who craves to manifest his spiritual daring is far more likely to find himself in the position of Rupert Brooke, of whom someone has said, "He imagines the poet as going on a magnificent quest to curse God on his throne of fire, and finding--nothing." The poet's youthful zest in scandalizing the orthodox is likely, however, to be early outgrown. As the difficulties in the way of his finding a God worthy of his adoration become manifest to him, it may be, indeed, with a sigh that he turns from the conventional religion in which so many men find certitude and place. This is the mood, frequently, of Browning, [Footnote: See _Christmas Eve_ and _Easter Day._] of Tennyson, [Footnote: See _In Memoriam._] of Arnold, [Footnote: See _Dover Beach._] of Clough. [Footnote: See _The New Sinai, Qui Laborat Orat, Hymnos Amnos, Epistrausium._] So, too, James Thomson muses with regret, How sweet to enter in, to kneel and pray With all the others whom we love so well! All disbelief and doubt might pass away, And peace float to us with its Sabbath bell. Conscience replies, There is but one good rest, Whose head is pillowed upon Truth's pure breast. [Footnote: _The Reclusant._]