New Guinea "Converts."

I saw them as they were born,         Erect and fearless and free,      Facing the sun and the wind         Of the hills and the sea.      I saw them naked, superb,         Like the Greeks long ago,      With shield and spear and arrow         Ready to strike and throw.      I saw them as they were made         By the Christianizing crows,      Blinking, stupid, clumsy         In their greasy ill-cut clothes:      I heard their gibbering cant,         And they sung those hymns that smell      Of poor souls besotted, degraded         With the fear of "God" and "hell."      And I thought if Jesus could see them,         He who loved the freedom, the light,      And loathed those who compassed heaven         And earth for one proselyte,      To make him, etcetera, etcetera, -         Then this sight, as on me or you,      Would act on him like an emetic,         And he'd have to go off and spue.      O Jesus, O man of the People,         Who died to abolish all this -      The pharisee rank and respectable,         The scribe and the greedy priest -      O Jesus, O sacred Socialist,         You would die again of shame,      If you were alive and could see         What things are done in your name.