EMANCIPATION

Posted by Admin on 23 February 2008, 12:00 am

Extract from life what joy you may,
for sages now profoundly see,
if science deny the Judgment Day,
the soul is biochemistry;
your character formed by the hands
of men who govern ductless glands.
Drink to Pan a draught of fire,
fulfil the need of every sense,
repress no sensual desire,
drink deep, and heed no consequence.
Scorn conscience with a passing jest,
and from tradition’s chains escape;
go, live your life with simious zest,
descendant of the ape!
The bonds of marriage now soon parted,
man bows no more convention’s slave;
rude, primitive as when law started,
he takes, who once, in homage, gave.
Proud arbiter of life he reigns,
condemning every sacred writ
as lore for superstition’s train
dispensed by knave and hypocrite.
Virtue, honour, sacrifice,
mere names today, sans weight, sans worth,
lost, free passion, greed, and vice,
found, provoke the cynics’ mirth.
Pursue each pleasure, count no cost,
gross surfeit has but one decree,
the bored must be forever lost
in deserts of futility.
But stay! What is that mystic sign
whose power yet you sometimes feel,
that, unseen, glows with light divine,
a rough-hewn cross,
Pause! Think! Kneel!