Freedom of Thought
When human life a shame to human eyes
Lay sprawling in the mire in foul estate,
A cowering thing without the strength to rise,
Held down by fell Religion's heavy weight —
Religion scowling downward from the skies,
With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate —
First did a man of Greece presume to raise
His brows and give the monster gaze for gaze.
Him not the tales of all the Gods in heaven,
Nor the heaven's lightnings nor the menacing roar
Of thunder daunted. He was only driven
By these vain vauntings to desire the more
To burst through Nature's gates and rive the unriven
Bars. And he gained the day; and, conqueror,
His spirit broke beyond our world and past
Its flaming walls, and fathomed all the vast.
And back returning, crowned with victory, he
Divulged of things the hidden mysteries,
Laying quite bare what can and cannot be,
How to each force is set strong boundaries,
How no power raves unchained; and now Religion lies
Trampled by us; and unto us 't is given
Fearless with level gaze to scan the heaven.
Yet fear I lest thou haply deem that thus
We sin and enter wicked ways of reason.
Whereas 'gainst all things good and beauteous
'T is oft Religion does the foulest treason.
Has not the tale of Aulis come to us
And those great chiefs who, in the windless season,
Bade young Iphianassa's form be laid
Upon the altar of the Trivian maid?
Soon as the fillet round her virgin hair
Fell in its equal lengths down either cheek, —
Soon as she saw her father standing there,
Sad, by the altar, without power to speak,
And at his side the murderous minister,
Hiding the knife, and many a faithful Greek
Weeping — her knees grew weak, and with no sound
She sank, in speechless terror, on the ground.
But naught availed it in that hour accurst
To save the maid from such a doom as this,
That her lips were the baby lips that first
Called the King father with their cries and kiss.
For round her came the strong men, and none durst
Refuse to do what cruel part was his;
So silently they raised her up, and bore her
All quivering, to the deadly shrine before her.
And as they bore her, ne'er a golden lyre
Rang round her coming with a bridal strain;
But in the very season of desire,
A stainless maiden, amid bloody stain
She died — a victim felled by its own sire —
That so the ships the wisht-for winds might gain
And air puff out their canvas. Learn thou, then,
To what damned deeds Religion urges men.
Lay sprawling in the mire in foul estate,
A cowering thing without the strength to rise,
Held down by fell Religion's heavy weight —
Religion scowling downward from the skies,
With hideous head, and vigilant eyes of hate —
First did a man of Greece presume to raise
His brows and give the monster gaze for gaze.
Him not the tales of all the Gods in heaven,
Nor the heaven's lightnings nor the menacing roar
Of thunder daunted. He was only driven
By these vain vauntings to desire the more
To burst through Nature's gates and rive the unriven
Bars. And he gained the day; and, conqueror,
His spirit broke beyond our world and past
Its flaming walls, and fathomed all the vast.
And back returning, crowned with victory, he
Divulged of things the hidden mysteries,
Laying quite bare what can and cannot be,
How to each force is set strong boundaries,
How no power raves unchained; and now Religion lies
Trampled by us; and unto us 't is given
Fearless with level gaze to scan the heaven.
Yet fear I lest thou haply deem that thus
We sin and enter wicked ways of reason.
Whereas 'gainst all things good and beauteous
'T is oft Religion does the foulest treason.
Has not the tale of Aulis come to us
And those great chiefs who, in the windless season,
Bade young Iphianassa's form be laid
Upon the altar of the Trivian maid?
Soon as the fillet round her virgin hair
Fell in its equal lengths down either cheek, —
Soon as she saw her father standing there,
Sad, by the altar, without power to speak,
And at his side the murderous minister,
Hiding the knife, and many a faithful Greek
Weeping — her knees grew weak, and with no sound
She sank, in speechless terror, on the ground.
But naught availed it in that hour accurst
To save the maid from such a doom as this,
That her lips were the baby lips that first
Called the King father with their cries and kiss.
For round her came the strong men, and none durst
Refuse to do what cruel part was his;
So silently they raised her up, and bore her
All quivering, to the deadly shrine before her.
And as they bore her, ne'er a golden lyre
Rang round her coming with a bridal strain;
But in the very season of desire,
A stainless maiden, amid bloody stain
She died — a victim felled by its own sire —
That so the ships the wisht-for winds might gain
And air puff out their canvas. Learn thou, then,
To what damned deeds Religion urges men.
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