Poem by Richard Watson Gilder

The Celestial Passion. Part 2. 7. On a Portrait of Servetus

Thou grim and haggard wanderer, who dost look
⁠     With haunting eyes forth from the narrow page!
     ⁠I know what fires consumed with inward rage
⁠     Thy broken frame, what tempests chilled and shook.
Ah, could not thy remorseless foeman brook
⁠     Time's sure devourment, but must needs assuage
⁠     His anger in thy blood, and blot the age
⁠     With that dark crime which virtue's semblance took!
Servetus! that which slew thee lives to-day,
⁠     Tho' in new forms it taints our modern air;
⁠     Still in heaven's name the deeds of hell are done;
Still on the high-road, 'neath the noonday sun,
⁠     The fires of hate are lit for them who dare
⁠     Follow their Lord along the untrodden way. 

1. The New Day. Part 4. 17. “He Knows Not the Path of Duty”
2. The Celestial Passion. Part 2. 4. Cost
3. The New Day. Part 3. 12. Denial
4. The New Day. Part 3. 19. Thistle-Down
5. The New Day. Part 3. 31. “When the Last Doubt Is Doubted”

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