The mindless herd are but the cunning's tools;
For ages have the learned of the schools
Furnished pack-saddles for the backs of fools.
Pale Superstition loves the gloom of night;
Truth, like a diamond, ever loves the light.
But still 'twere wrong to speak but in abuse,
For priests and popes have had, and have, their use.
Yea, Superstition since the world began
Hath been an instrument to govern man:
For men were brutes, and brutal fear was given
To chain the brute till Reason came from heaven.
Aye, men were beasts for lo how many ages!
And only fear held them in chains and cages.
Wise men were priests, and gladly I accord
They were the priests and prophets of the Lord;
For love was lust and o'er all earth's arena
Hell-fire alone could tame the wild hyena.
All history is the register, we find,
Of the crimes and lusts and sufferings of mankind;
And there are still dark lands where it is well
That Superstition wear the horns of hell,
And hold her torches o'er the brutal head,
And fright the beast with fire and goblin dread
Till Reason come the darkness to dispel.
How hard it is for mortals to unlearn
Beliefs bred in the marrow of their bones!
How hard it is for mortals to discern
The truth that preaches from the silent stones,
The silent hills, the silent universe,
While Error cries in sanctimonious tones
That all the light of life and God is hers!
Lo in the midst we stand: we cannot see
Either the dark beginning or the end,
Or where our tottering footsteps turn or trend
In the vast orbit of Eternity.
Pages:
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316