He walks, the enchanter, on his sea of glass,

Poring upon his blue inverted heaven

Where a false sun revolves from west to east.

If he could raise his eyes he would see his hell.

He is no spirit, nor a spirit’s shadow,

But a mere toy shaped by ingenious devils

To bring discomfiture on credulous man.

He’s the false copy where each feature’s wrong,

Yet so disposed the whole gives a resemblance.

When he’s in anguish smiles writhe on hus lips

And will not stop. His imperturbable brow

Is carved by rage not his but theirs that made him,

For he’s a nothing where they move in freedom,

Knowing that nothing’s there. When he forgives

It is for love of sin not of the sinner.

He takes sin for his province, knows sin only,

Nothing but sin from end to end of the world.

He heals the sick to show his conjuring skull,

Vexed only by the cure; and turns his cheek

To goad the furious to more deadly fury,

And damn by a juggling trick the ingenuous sinner.

He brings men from the dead to tell the living

That their undoing is a common fetch,

Ingeniously he postures on the Tree

(His crowning jest), an actor miming death,

While his indifferent mind is idly pleased

That treason should run on through tame for ever.

Hus vast indulgence is so free and ample,

You well might think it universal love,

For all seems goodness, sweetness, harmony.

He is the Lie; one true thought, and he’s gone.