NEW GUINEA “CONVERTS.”

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 greedy 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.