| Matthew Arnold (1822–88). The Poems of Matthew Arnold, 1840–1867. 1909. | | | | New Poems, 1867 | | The Good Shepherd with the Kid |
| | [First published 1867.]
HE saves the sheep, the goats he doth not save! | |
| So rang Tertullian’s sentence, on the side | |
| Of that unpitying Phrygian sect 1 which cried: | |
| ‘Him can no fount of fresh forgiveness lave, | |
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| ‘Who sins, once wash’d by the baptismal wave!’ | 5 |
| So spake the fierce Tertullian. But she sigh’d, | |
| The infant Church; of love she felt the tide | |
| Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave. | |
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| And then she smiled, and in the Catacombs, | |
| With eye suffused but heart inspired true, | 10 |
| On those walls subterranean, where she did | |
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| Her head in ignominy, death, and tombs, | |
| She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew; | |
| And on his shoulders, not a lamb, a kid. | |
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