yes, I'm very stubborn; not yet ready to give up on this Johnny Milton thing. here's a revised edition.

ROGER WILLIAMS

   
                 the government shall be upon his shoulder
                                             – Isaiah


 
His statue steps off a cliff at Prospect Park
into the bow of an uncarved canoe –
invisible ship of state, that will embark
buoyant from here, to shape the world anew.
One civil concord, one unswerving keel,
one course whose wake’s dead reckoning is true:
beyond temporal things – in the eternal Real –
the Lord alone will judge: no human lords will do.

 
Political tyrants, pious hypocrites,
religious fabricators, fog machines,
here magnanimity outruns your wits,
here freedom’s lantern plumb line wins
the day.  Away with your burnt offerings;
speak truth, do right: these only shall please.