Whether with hues of corpses or of blood,--
Phallus obscene or volva as of glue--
In the rank rotting of the underwood,
And those that out of dead beasts' bodies grew,
Fed by the effervescence
Of poisonous putrescence,
Flourish the saprophytes in mould and must.
Plants without roots and with no leaves of green,
Souls without faith or hope--they thrust
Protuberances rank with lust,
Inert, venene.
And if there is not death in all of them,
It is because some sect among them breeds
From less putrescent wood fallen from the stem
Of the Living Tree whose severed bough still feeds.
In the autumnal thicket, thinned
Along its mournful arches by the wind,
No longer to dead twigs but sapwood quick,
Corrupting trunks that time left whole,
The reeking parasites in millions stick,
Like to the carnal ill that gnaws the soul
Of those who at the feet of women fawn.
And Hell has blessed their countless spawn.
And though they cannot reach the surging tops
Of the unshaken columns of the Church,
In spreading crops
The parasites with poison smirch
And mottle with strange stains the fruits
The Monstrance ripens in the groves of Rome.
Trusting that ancient orchard's sainted roots,
Whoever of the leprous apples eats
Shall feel his faith grow darkened with a gloam
That filters heresy's corroding sweets.
More hideous than saprophytes,
And therefore for the sacrilege more fit,
Upon the Corn and Vinestock sit
Minute and miserable parasites;
And o'er the Eucharist their tiny bellies,
To cat and crimson it, have crept.
Their occult plague has for three hundred years
Eaten the very hope of mystic ears,
Wherever the Christian Harvester has slept.
And while, in the land of heavy, yellow beers,
In the brewing-vat of barren exegeses
Some new-found yeast for ever effervesces,
The saints whose blood turns sick and rots,
Waiting till a second Nero shall
For their cremation light a golden carnival,
Behold their bodies decked with livid spots.