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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 14

Poetry. — Giordano Bruno

page 337

Poetry.

Giordano Bruno.

(From the Scotsman.)

"With greater fear you now pronounce my doom
Than I unyielding take it from your hands."
He stood before them in the council room
Erect and free despite their iron bands.

No cause he pleads upheld by people's voice,
No fiery impulse heats a martyr's brain,
Alone and calm abides he by the choice
Of weary years of bondage and of pain.

A page divine lay open to his sight;
He found the truth because he questioned why;
And it was writ in characters of light
By God's own finger on the midnight sky.

He followed truth; proclaimed his purpose high
With constant lips, and with unfalt'ring breath—
He followed truth and Godlike dared to die,
And thought immortal triumphed over death

Some had supernatural joys before their sight,
And felt a Saviour's hand within their own;
He had not this, but fought the final fight,
And went into the darkness all alone.

Raise high the faggots! ye would "shed no blood,"
Oh holy charity! Oh Christianlike grace!
Thought ye as 'mid the raging flame he stood
This damning he would shield ye from disgrace?

He came, a greater gift than priest or king.
Ye robed and crown'd him with devouring flame;
Behold the rolling years avenging bring
To you and to your heirs undying shame.

What need of monumental stone to thee?
Within the heart of truth art thou enshrined,
And in the heart of all that seek to free
From priestly craft and creed, the bondaged mind.

Our sympathies are spreading far and wide;
The sun that shone upon the stake has set;
Our churches multiply on every side;
But have we room for Bruno even yet.

The light is breaking! see the hill-tops high
Enkindling with the brightness of that sun!
The light is breaking that will never die;
And science and religion shine in one.

L. J. Nicolson.