This is not how I saw it happening, no:
my name to be remembered—a wild-eyed
goat-man, saved from the slaughter by that elect
and exile people whom I, once fervent,
intended to save.
They have denied me now even a martyrdom—
and myself the rebel’s crown—for the comfort
of Roman subdual, in pace, in static subjection
to repose and abide. I am a wretch of rebel promise,
and I have let myself be duped.
Was it not you who singed my lips and cracked
my head on holy stones? Am I not forged in every fiber
from earth and spirit all your own? I am undone
in ancient purpose, and I am
Free to count my fettered bones.
•
Or to ransom them still—all within me, a temple:
unsundered because inaccessible, as only
a madness made pure in vocation. My seeping
heritage marks me to hallow—and harrow—
a spark upon sparks, to the fire of the age
Of revolution. And redemption: all they have called me,
and all I reclaim—murderer, blasphemer, riotmonger, fool—
dissolves, now. I am resolved, now.
I cannot escape my name.
