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.