Versos English Algernon Charles Swinburne QUIA NOMINOR LEO

English poem

QUIA NOMINOR LEO

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What part is left thee, lion? Ravenous beast, Which hadst the world for pasture, and for scope And compass of thine homicidal hope The kingdom of the spirit of man, the feast Of souls subdued from west to sunless east, From blackening north to bloodred south aslope, All servile; earth for footcloth of the pope, And heaven for chancel-ceiling of the priest; Thou that hadst earth by right of rack and rod, Thou that hadst Rome because thy name was God, And by thy creed's gift heaven wherein to dwell; Heaven laughs with all his light and might above That earth has cast thee out of faith and love; Thy part is but the hollow dream of hell.