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.