Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/73

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THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL.
59
Was Jesus born of a virgin pure
With narrow soul and looks demure?
If He intended to take on sin
His mother should an harlot have been,
Just such a one as Magdalen
With seven devils in her pen.
Or were Jew virgins still more cursed,
And with more sucking devils nursed?
Or what was it that He took on
That He might bring salvation?
A body subject to be tempted,
From neither pain nor grief exempted, —
Or such a body as might not feel
The passions that with sinners deal?
Yes, but they say He never fell.
Ask Caiaphas, for he can tell.
"He mocked the Sabbath, and he mocked
The Sabbath's God, and he unlocked
The evil spirits from their shrines,
And turned fishermen to divines,
O'erturned the tent of secret sins,
And all its golden cords and pins;
'Tis the bloody shrine of war,
Poured around from star to star, —
Halls of justice, hating vice,
Where the devil combs his lice.
He turned the devils into swine
That he might tempt the Jews to dine;
Since when a pig has got a look
That for a Jew may be mistook.
' Obey your parents.' What says he?
' Woman, what have I to do with thee?
No earthly parents I confess,
I am doing my father's business.'
He scorned earth's parents, scorned earth's God
And mocked the one and the other rod;
His seventy disciples sent
Against religion and government,
They by the sword of Justice fell,
And him their cruel murderer tell.
He left his father's trade to roam
A wandering vagrant without home,
And thus he others' labours stole
That he might live above control.
The publicans and harlots he
Selected for his company,
And from the adultress turned away
God's righteous law that lost its prey."