`Or surely I shall shame myself and him.'

`Nor yours the blame--for who beside your hearths
Can take her place--if echoing me you cry
"Our house is left unto us desolate?"
But thou, O thou that killest, hadst thou known,
O thou that stonest, hadst thou understood
The things belonging to thy peace and ours!
Is there no prophet but the voice that calls
Doom upon kings, or in the waste `Repent'?
Is not our own child on the narrow way,
Who down to those that saunter in the broad
Cries `come up hither,' as a prophet to us?
Is there no stoning save with flint and rock?
Yes, as the dead we weep for testify--
No desolation but by sword and fire?
Yes, as your moanings witness, and myself
Am lonelier, darker, earthlier for my loss.
Give me your prayers, for he is past your prayers,
Not past the living fount of pity in Heaven.
But I that thought myself long-suffering, meek,
Exceeding "poor in spirit"--how the words
Have twisted back upon themselves, and mean
Vileness, we are grown so proud--I wish'd my voice
A rushing tempest of the wrath of God
To blow these sacrifices thro' the world--
Sent like the twelve-divided concubine
To inflame the tribes: but there--out yonder--earth
Lightens from her own central Hell--O there
The red fruit of an old idolatry--