Classic Poem

Scarcely believe things shameful to utter which yet I shall speak of:
sins of dire name and sins beyond sin.
Alas! the fires of Sodom flicker around us
and none strikes down the error, conceals nor laments of his crime.
Close your eyes to bestial sin, you who are here:
for impious rage bursts forth when it is known of and heard.
Fruitlessly, furiously, he becomes she:
marriage is rejected and virtue despised.
Weep for the time, weep for each part of it, cram full of sin.
Oh rage, oh terror, when man forgets manhood to be as the hyena.
Behold the multitude, filthy and barren:
of what order is their sin and who may name it? Surely the grave.
Alas! this crime re-echoes its horror to the stars,
the deed is open and is noised abroad. Chastity, tremble!
This man learns it of that man, that man of this
and your law as your voice and your prophecy come near to their death, oh Christ.
The law of Sodom obtains in a world that is teeming with Ganymedes,
and showing forth his crime, the beast is in every dwelling.
Every couch and the high places belong to the boy;
marriage is rejected, oh madness, as the she-goat gives way to the kid.
Ask me to number the flock and quickly I shall tell it,
quickly proclaim and readily unfold it in tragic speech:
It is as common as grains of barley in harvest, as oysters in the sea
or sands on the shore, as Adriatic Cyclades or as incense in India,
as wild oats at Tibur.
The castle, the villa and the holy places are ripe with it;
and everywhere, oh shame, flows over with this plague.
The world in impotence perishes, wants what is horrible, does what is dire;
all feeds on brimstone and is become one Gomorrah.