I SAW them as they were born, <br />Erect and fearless and free, <br />Facing the sun and the wind <br />Of the hills and the sea. <br />I saw them naked, superb, <br />Like the Greeks long ago, <br />With shield and spear and arrow <br />Ready to strike and throw. <br />I saw them as they were made <br />By the Christianizing crows, <br />Blinking, stupid, clumsy, <br />In their greasy ill-cut clothes: <br />I heard their gibbering cant, <br />And they sung those hymns that smell <br />Of poor souls besotted, degraded <br />With the fear of 'God' and 'Hell.' <br />And I thought if Jesus could see them, <br />He who loved the freedom, the light, <br />And loathed those who compassed heaven <br />And earth for one proselyte, <br />To make him, etcetera, etcetera, — <br />Then this sight, as on me or you, <br />Would act on him like an emetic, <br />And he'd have to go off and spue. <br />O Jesus, O man of the People, <br />Who died to abolish all this — <br />The Pharisee rank and respectable, <br />The Scribe and the scabrous Priest — <br />O Jesus, O sacred Socialist, <br />You would die again of shame, <br />If you were alive and could see <br />What things are done in your Name.<br /><br />Francis William Lauderdale Adams<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/new-guinea/
