Apostasy

Et Judas m'a dit: Tratre!     - Victor Hugo I     Truths change with time, and terms with truth. To-day     A statesman worships union, and to-night     Disunion. Shame to have sinned against the light     Confounds not but impels his tongue to unsay     What yestereve he swore. Should fear make way     For treason? honour change her livery? fright     Clasp hands with interest? wrong pledge faith with right?     Religion, mercy, conscience, answer, Yea.     To veer is not to veer: when votes are weighed,     The numerous tongue approves him renegade     Who cannot change his banner: he that can     Sits crowned with wreaths of praise too pure to fade.     Truth smiles applause on treason's poisonous plan:     And Cleon is an honourable man. II     Pure faith, fond hope, sweet love, with God for guide,     Move now the men whose blameless error cast     In prison (ah, but love condones the past!)     Their subject knaves that were, their lords that ride     Now laughing on their necks, and now bestride     Their vassal backs in triumph. Faith stands fast     Though fear haul down the flag that crowned her mast     And hope and love proclaim that truth has lied.     Turn, turn, and turn, so bids the still small voice,     The changeless voice of honour. He that stands     Where all his life he stood, with bribeless hands,     With tongue unhired to mourn, reprove, rejoice,     Curse, bless, forswear, and swear again, and lie,     Stands proven apostate in the apostate's eye. III     Fraud shrinks from faith: at sight of swans, the raven     Chides blackness, and the snake recoils aghast     In fear of poison when a bird flies past.     Thersites brands Achilles as a craven;     The shoal fed full with shipwreck blames the haven     For murderous lust of lives devoured, and vast     Desire of doom whose feast is mercy's fast:     And Bacon sees the traitor's mark engraven     Full on the front of Essex. Grief and shame     Obscure the chaste and sunlike spirit of Oates     At thought of Russell's treason; and the name     Of Milton sickens with superb disgust     The heaving heart of Waller. Wisdom dotes,     If wisdom turns not tail and licks not dust. IV     The sole sweet land found fit to wed the sea,     With reptile rebels at her heel of old,     Set hard her heel upon them, and controlled     The cowering poisonous peril. How should she     Cower, and resign her trust of empire? Free     As winds and waters live the loyal-souled     And true-born sons that love her: nay, the bold     Base knaves who curse her name have leave to be     The loud-tongued liars they are. For she, beyond     All woful years that bid men's hearts despond,     Sees yet the likeness of her ancient fame     Burn from the heavenward heights of history, hears     Not Leicester's name but Sidney's, faith's, not fear's,     Not Gladstone's now but only Gordon's name.