80
Monstrous or vast, or beautifully wild,
Which, from sensation’s relics, fancy culls
The spirits of the air, the shuddering ghost,
The genii of the elements, the powers
That give a shape to Nature’s varied works, 85
Had life and place in the corrupt belief
Of thy blind heart:  yet still thy youthful hands
Were pure of human blood.  Then manhood gave
Its strength and ardour to thy frenzied brain;
Thine eager gaze scanned the stupendous scene, 90
Whose wonders mocked the knowledge of thy pride: 
Their everlasting and unchanging laws
Reproached thine ignorance.  Awhile thou stoodst
Baffled and gloomy; then thou didst sum up
The elements of all that thou didst know; 95
The changing seasons, winter’s leafless reign,
The budding of the Heaven-breathing trees,
The eternal orbs that beautify the night,
The sunrise, and the setting of the moon,
Earthquakes and wars, and poisons and disease, 100
And all their causes, to an abstract point
Converging, thou didst bend and called it God! 
The self-sufficing, the omnipotent,
The merciful, and the avenging God! 
Who, prototype of human misrule, sits 105
High in Heaven’s realm, upon a golden throne,
Even like an earthly king; and whose dread work,
Hell, gapes for ever for the unhappy slaves
Of fate, whom He created, in his sport,
To triumph in their torments when they fell! 110
Earth heard the name; Earth trembled, as the smoke
Of His revenge ascended up to Heaven,
Blotting the constellations; and the cries
Of millions, butchered in sweet confidence
And unsuspecting peace, even when the bonds 115
Of safety were confirmed by wordy oaths
Sworn in His dreadful name, rung through the land;
Whilst innocent babes writhed on thy stubborn spear,
And thou didst laugh to hear the mother’s shriek
Of maniac gladness, as the sacred steel 120
Felt cold in her torn entrails!

’Religion! thou wert then in manhood’s prime: 
But age crept on:  one God would not suffice
For senile puerility; thou framedst
A tale to suit thy dotage, and to glut 125
Thy misery-thirsting soul, that the mad fiend
Thy wickedness had pictured might afford
A plea for sating the unnatural thirst
For murder, rapine, violence, and crime,
That still consumed thy being, even when 130
Thou heardst the step of Fate;—­that flames might light
Thy funeral scene, and the shrill horrent shrieks
Of parents dying on the pile that burned
To light their children to thy paths, the roar
Of the encircling flames, the exulting cries 135
Of thine apostles, loud commingling there,
Might sate thine hungry ear
Even on the bed of death!