Children of the Night

Zola

     Because he puts the compromising chart
     Of hell before your eyes, you are afraid;
     Because he counts the price that you have paid
     For innocence, and counts it from the start,
     You loathe him.  But he sees the human heart
     Of God meanwhile, and in God's hand has weighed
     Your squeamish and emasculate crusade
     Against the grim dominion of his art.

     Never until we conquer the uncouth
     Connivings of our shamed indifference
     (We call it Christian faith!) are we to scan
     The racked and shrieking hideousness of Truth
     To find, in hate's polluted self-defence
     Throbbing, the pulse, the divine heart of man.