Mentana: Second Anniversary

Est-ce qu'il n'est pas temps que la foudre se prouve,     Cieux profonds, en broyant ce chien, fils de la louve?     La Lgende des Sicles: - Ratbert. 1     By the dead body of Hope, the spotless lamb     Thou threwest into the high priest's slaughtering-room,     And by the child Despair born red therefrom     As, thank the secret sire picked out to cram     With spurious spawn thy misconceiving dam,     Thou, like a worm from a town's common tomb,     Didst creep from forth the kennel of her womb,     Born to break down with catapult and ram     Man's builded towers of promise, and with breath     And tongue to track and hunt his hopes to death:     O, by that sweet dead body abused and slain,     And by that child mismothered,--dog, by all     Thy curses thou hast cursed mankind withal,     With what curse shall man curse thee back again? 2     By the brute soul that made man's soul its food;     By time grown poisonous with it; by the hate     And horror of all souls not miscreate;     By the hour of power that evil hath on good;     And by the incognizable fatherhood     Which made a whorish womb the shameful gate     That opening let out loose to fawn on fate     A hound half-blooded ravening for man's blood;     (What prayer but this for thee should any say,     Thou dog of hell, but this that Shakespeare said?)     By night deflowered and desecrated day,     That fall as one curse on one cursed head,     "Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,     That I may live to say, The dog is dead!"