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1903
DULY with knees that feign to quake— | |
| Bent head and shaded brow,— | |
| Yet once again, for my father’s sake, | |
| In Rimmon’s House I bow. | |
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| The curtains part, the trumpet blares, | 5 |
| And the eunuchs howl aloud; | |
| And the gilt, swag-bellied idol glares | |
| Insolent over the crowd. | |
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| “This is Rimmon, Lord of the Earth— | |
| “Fear Him and bow the knee!” | 10 |
| And I watch my comrades hide their mirth | |
| That rode to the wars with me. | |
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| For we remember the sun and the sand | |
| And the rocks whereon we trod, | |
| Ere we came to a scorched and a scornful land | 15 |
| That did not know our God; | |
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| As we remember the sacrifice | |
| Dead men an hundred laid— | |
| Slain while they served His mysteries, | |
| And that He would not aid. | 20 |
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| Not though we gashed ourselves and wept, | |
| For the high-priest bade us wait; | |
| Saying He went on a journey or slept, | |
| Or was drunk or had taken a mate. | |
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| (Praise ye Rimmon, King of Kings, | 25 |
| Who ruleth Earth and Sky! | |
| And again I bow as the censer swings | |
| And the God Enthroned goes by.) | |
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| Ay, we remember His sacred ark | |
| And the virtuous men that knelt | 30 |
| To the dark and the hush behind the dark | |
| Wherein we dreamed He dwelt; | |
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| Until we entered to hale Him out, | |
| And found no more than an old | |
| Uncleanly image girded about | 35 |
| The loins with scarlet and gold. | |
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| Him we o’erset with the butts of our spears— | |
| Him and his vast designs— | |
| To be the scorn of our muleteers | |
| And the jest of our halted lines. | 40 |
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| By the picket-pins that the dogs defile, | |
| In the dung and the dust He lay, | |
| Till the priests ran and chattered awhile | |
| And wiped Him and took Him away. | |
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| Hushing the matter before it was known, | 45 |
| They returned to our fathers afar, | |
| And hastily set Him afresh on His throne | |
| Because he had won us the war. | |
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| Wherefore with knees that feign to quake— | |
| Bent head and shaded brow— | 50 |
| To this dead dog, for my father’s sake, | |
| In Rimmon’s House I bow! | |
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