There Was One Powerful Man, and Only One

There was one powerful man, and only one
In God's wide world; what could he not achieve?
He might have driven from her citadel
Defiant Falsehood and her tawdry guards
And bastard progeny innumerable;
He might have propt up cities with one arm
And driven with the other from the temple
Sellers of bones, of charms, of opiates,
Of glittering gauds and cutlery occult;
He, like the blessed one of Nazareth,
Might have restored the sight of the stone-blind
And raised the prostrate cripple up erect.
Earth spread her feast before him, millions rose
To serve him and to bless him; did lie bring
An honest man with him? he brought instead
Desperate swordsmen and astuter knaves,
Who sit around him, and will sit until
The night fall heavily on their carouse,
And the seats reel beneath 'em, unregain'd.