Wherever he may be, whether on sea or land, Beneath a sun of white, under a clime of flame, Servant of Jesus Christ, in Cythera's harlot-band, Croesus glittering in gold, beggarman without fame: City or country-dweller, vagabond, sedentary, Whether his little brain run light or actively, Man everywhere submits to terror's evil fairy: And never looks aloft but with a trembling eye. Above is heaven's cellar-roof that chokes; A ceiling lit for comic-opera jokes Staged where each actor treads on bloody soil: The fear of libertines: the hermit's hope; The sky, that black lid of that pot of soup Where mankind, vast, infinitesimal, boil! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PENITENTIAL PSALM: 6. DOMINE NE IN FURORE by THOMAS WYATT THE RESURRECTION by JONATHAN HENDERSON BROOKS A SHROPSHIRE LAD: 62 by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN CALYPSO WATCHING THE OCEAN by LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON THE HOUSE OF LIFE: 70. THE HILL-SUMMIT by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI AT LAST by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER |