Vulgar as venomous! Dragon indeed,
And dangerous, but with no soul save greed,
No aim save chaos. Bloody, yet so blind,
The common enemy of humankind;
Whose age-stored works and ways it yearns to blast,
To smite to ruined fragments, and to cast
Prone--as itself is prone--in common dust.
The Beautiful, the Wise, the Strong, the Just,
All fruit of labour, and all spoil of thought,
All that co-operant Man hath won or wrought,
All that the heart has loved, the mind has taught
Through the long generations, hoarded gains
Of plastic fancies, and of potent brains;
Thrones, Temples, Marts, Art's alcoves, Learning's domes,
Patrician palaces, and _bourgeois_ homes.
Down, down!--to glut _its_ spleen, the paltry thing,
Impotent, save to lurk, and coil, and spring,
But powerful as the poison-drop, once sped,
That creeps, corrupts, and leaves its victim--dead!
As the asp's fang could turn to pulseless clay
The Pride of Egypt, so this Worm can slay
If left long covert for its crawling course.
Up, up against it every virile force,
And every valorous virtue! By its hiss
'Tis known _hostis humani generis_,
Let Civilisation snatch St. Michael's sword,
And slay this Dragon, of a tribe abhorred
The meanest and the most malignant Worm
Which can spill venom, but, attacked, will squirm,
Shrink, splutter, vanish. With no noble end,