A VALENTINE'S SONG 33
I see strange days for thee and thine, O priest, And how your doctrines, fallen one by one,
Shall furnish at the annual feast The puppet-booth of fun.
Stand on your putrid ruins—stand,
White neck-clothed bigot, fixedly the same. Cruel with all things but the hand.
Inquisitor in all things but the name, Back, minister of Christ and source of fear—
We cherish freedom—back with thee and thine From, this unruly time of year.
The Feast of Valentine.
Blood thou mayest spare; but what of tears ?
But what of riven households, broken faith— Bywords that cling through all men's years
And drag them surely down io shame and death ? Stand back, O cruel m*ua, O foe of youth,
And let such men as hearken not thy voice Press freely up the road to truth,
The King's highway of choice.