New Guinea



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

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

59 sec read
94

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCBDEEEFGBHIJKJLMNCOPQRSTSUVWBW
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 997
Words 197
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 32

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams was an essayist poet dramatist novelist and journalist who produced a large volume of work in his short life more…

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    "New Guinea" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 28 Mar. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/14038/new-guinea>.

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