HERO WORSHIP

by: Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914)

LMOST a very god thou wert to me;

Haloed with brilliant virtues; every grace

Lived in thy look and shone about thy face:

I bowed beneath thee, loved, feared, worshipped thee.

Then in my folly and my jealousy

I let my critic thoughts prevail apace,

Which entered, swarming, tore thee from thy place,

And dashed thee down in wrath and enmity.

 

So some ungallant priest in other days

Bade Cromwell's troopers to the House of God,

And marked Our Lady totter from the height;

And when the shame was finished, in amaze

Looked piteously, and, kneeling where they trod,

Fell all a-weeping at the sorry sight.

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