Sunt Leones

The lions who ate the Christians on the sands of the arena By indulging native appetites played what has now been seen a Not entirely negligible part In consolidating at the very start The position of the Early Christian Church. Initiatory rites are always bloody And the lions, it appears From contemporary art, made a study Of dyeing Coliseum sands a ruddy Liturgically sacrificial hue And if the Christians felt a little blue— Well people being eaten often do. Theirs was the death, and theirs the crown undying, A state of things which must be satisfying. My point which up to this has been obscured is that it was the lions who procured By chewing up blood gristle flesh and bone The martyrdoms on which the Church has grown. I only write this poem because I thought it rather looked As if the part the lions played was being overlooked. By lions’ jaws great benefits and blessings were begotten And so our debt to Lionhood must never be forgotten.