The Heretic's Tragedy
A Middle-Age Interlude
Rosa mundi; seu, fulcite me floribus. A conceit of Master Gysbrecht, Canon-regular of Saint Jodocus-by-the-Bar, Ypres city. Cantuque, Virgilius. And hath often been sung at Hock-tide and festivals. Gavisus eram, Jessides.
(It would seem to be a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay, at Paris, A.D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from Flemish brain to brain, during the course of a couple of centuries.)
[Molay was Grand Master of the Templars when that order was suppressed in 1312.]
I
PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEODAET.
The Lord, we look to once for all,
Is the Lord we should look at, all at once:
He knows not to vary, saith Saint Paul,
Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce.
See him no other than as he is!
Give both the infinitudes their due—
Infinite mercy, but, I wis,
As infinite a justice too.
[Organ: plagal-cadence.
As infinite a justice too.
II
ONE SINGETH
John, Master of the Temple of God,
Falling to sin the Unknown Sin,
What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod,
He sold it to Sultan Saladin:
Till, caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,
Hornet-prince of the mad wasps' hive,
And clipt of his wings in Paris square,
They bring him now to be burned alive.
[And wanteth there grace of lute
or clavicithern, ye shall say to
confirm him who singeth—
We bring John now to be burned alive.
III
In the midst is a goodly gallows built;
'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is stuck;
But first they set divers tumbrils a-tilt,
Make a trench all round with the city muck;
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poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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