Lictor or heavy slave would wear it best,
The robe of uncapricious Emperor,
Waging a profitable war, at least
Knowing rule lay in gathered fold, not them.
But Julian bursts the doubly sacred hem;
Weighted enough by every growing hair.
Born in mid progress of his history
He is perceptive of the sudden wrong
In those deliberate laws he framed today:
The absolute is hard to formulate:
Failure, desire, seek out their man; the date
Is relative, they die once they belong.
High in the palace, his concern is more
With a spirit self-created but cross-bred.
He sees them gather, reach the great church door,
Waving red flowers; from it frost: the bands
Of monks emerge with axes in their hands.
They swim among the pagans, white on red.
No subject can divert his cold resolve
To fix a question that, eluding name,
To make corporeal would be to solve.
The answer lies in some embodiment
Of question mark itself, not what is meant:
He stoops within that hypothetical frame.