Logician, The

We saw thee on thy mountain peak sublime, 
     In the cool air of Reason clear and keen, 
     Gather th' Invading fogs sent up to screen 
From God's accusing azure the fens of crime, 
And flake by flake in stars of glittering rime 
     Build the resistless glacier of thy theme, 
     Whose rigorous, still, impenetrable stream
Ground into dust the frauds of eldest time.
Old Bondage, bulwarked by a church's wall, 
     The bloody gibbet,-a transmuted cross,—
Wars' million murders sanctified by all 
     Her hireling priests, false faiths, and gods of dross,
Felt through their crumbling fortresses the weight
Of all thy crystalline thought borne down in stern debate.