Some penance for my father's wrong,
In purgatorial cell,
His son would do that memory strong
They named an Infidel;

He who, exiled from sire and home
For his credulity,
Made of the mighty tale of Rome,
Homerian history.

The pulpiteers they, did instil
Aspersions partisan,
I bought his book and kept it till
I read it when a man,

Then Koran, Talmud, Testaments,
Old Moses or his scribes
Like whimseys seemed in Arab tents
Took down by savage tribes.

The vast procession of mankind
Like some great circus seemed
In his kaleidoscopic mind,
Metempsychosed or dreamed.

Still, in the terms of them who pray,
I thought his book so wise
He seemed like Christ on judgment day,
Who held the great assize.

He wove the bad with so much glad,
In my astonishment
Haroun al Raschid in Bagdad
Was less magnificent.

By night or day in cave or camp,
His touchstone had such skill
Aladdin with the burning lamp
Was Edward Gibbon still.

No creedsman and no mountebank,
Nor of his soul afraid,
He had the instinct of the Frank,
And was the last crusade.

Nor in the literary life,
His gallantry was sunk;
His love was Necker's noble wife,
For her he was a monk.

He left the gates of faith ajar
For science yet to hope:
A gentleman, a warrior,
An Emperor and Pope.