So he lives Nursing the dream (like father he's a dreamer) That genius fires him. All the while a gift For analytics stored behind that brow, That bulges like a loaf of bread, is all Of which he well may boast above the man He hates as but a slave of faith and fear. He feeds luxurious doubt with Omar Khyam, But for long years neglects the jug of wine. And as for "thou" he does not wake for years, Is a pure maiden when he weds, the grains Run counter in him, end in knots at times. He takes from father certain tastes and traits, From mother certain others, one can see His mother's sex re-actions to his father, Not passed to him to make him celibate, But holding back in sleeping passions which Burst over bounds at last in lust, not love. Not love since that great engine in the brow Tears off the irised wings of love and bares The poor worm's body where the wings had been: What is it but desire? Such stuff in rhyme In music over what is but desire, And ends when that is satisfied! He's a crank. And follows all the psychic thrills which run To cackles o'er the world. It's Looking Backward, Or Robert Elsmere, Spencer's Social Statics, It's socialism, Anarchism, Peace, It's non-resistance with a swelling heart, As who should say how truer to the faith Of Jesus am I, without hope or faith, Than churchmen. He's a prohibitionist, The poor's protagonist, the knight at arms Of fallen women, yelling at the rich Whose wicked greed makes all the prostitutes-- No prostitutes without the wicked rich! But as he ages, as the bitter days Approach with perorations: O ye vipers, The engine in him changes all the world, Reverses all the wheels of thought behind. For Nietzsche comes, and makes him superman. He dumps the truth of Jesus over--there It lies with his youth's textual skepticism, And laughter at the supernatural.