Worldly Power
When the grand, when the solemn celebration was in train
And the Lord on the cross was expiring in His pain,
At the side of the life-giving Rood
Sinful Mary, and the Virgin most holy and good,
A pair of women, stood;
Who could reckon up their anguish? No-one could.
But to-day at the foot of the hallowed Rood,
As it might be the city governor’s entry,
We see not women but men, not saints,
But with rifles and shakos, two fearsome sentries.
Say, why the custodial vigilance?
Is the crucifixion a treasury fief?
Were you nervous of mice, or perhaps of a thief?
Would you add to the glory of the Tsar of Tsars?
Or are you the master’s rescuers,
A security force for the thorn-crowned Christ
Who subjects his flesh to the nails and spears
And the flails of his executioners?
Is the common herd not sufficiently nice
For the one who saved mankind by His sacrifice,
And the sauntering scions of the civilised class?
Will you suffer not the people in freedom to pass?
Timothy Ades writes: Thirty versions of this poem appeared in MPT 15: a transliteration and a literal version had been sent to thirty paladins. I was set the same exercise at a recent summer school.
Translated by Timothy Ades
Page(s) 147
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