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Kenneth Slessor - Rubens` Innocents
Work rating: Low

IF all those tumbling babes of heaven, 
 Plump cherubim with blown cheeks, 
 Could vault in these warm skies, or leaven 
 Our starry silent mountain-peaks— 
 O painter of chub-faced, shining-thighed 
 Fat Ganymedes of God—what noise 
 Would churn between the clouds and stride 
 Far downward from those rose-mouthed boys! 
 Down to our spires their lusty whooping, 
 Fanfares of Paradise, would speed, 
 Far down to dark-faced clergy stooping 
 Round altars of their doleful creed; 
 And God, whose wings of silver sweep 
 Like metal afire on heaven`s rim, 
 Would daze them with a twinkling peep 
 Of those young moon-stained cherubim— 
 Then, for a trice, their skies might sparkle, 
 And some gold ichor splash amid 
 Those most respectable, patriarchal 
 Purveyors of stale pardons, hid 
 Behind their old cathedral closes 
 From this unguessed, unguessable God, 
 Shining before their learned noses 
 Down roads that Peter Rubens trod.
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