Songs of Experience: A Little Boy Lost

Sunday 11 July 2004.
 
’Nought loves another as itself,
                Nor venerates another so,
Nor is it possible to thought
                A greater than itself to know.
 
’And, father, how can I love you
                Or any of my brothers more?
I love you like the little bird
                That picks up crumbs around the door.’
 
The Priest sat by and heard the child;
                In trembling zeal he seized his hair,
He led him by his little coat,
                And all admired his priestly care.
 
And standing on the altar high,
                â€™Lo, what a fiend is here!’ said he:
’One who sets reason up for judge
                Of our most holy mystery.’
 
The weeping child could not be heard,
                The weeping parents wept in vain:
They stripped him to his little shirt,
                And bound him in an iron chain,
 
And burned him in a holy place
                Where many had been burned before;
The weeping parents wept in vain.
                Are such things done on Albion’s shore?



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