Official Piety

A pious magistrate! sound his praise throughout     The wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubt     That the long-wished millennium draweth nigh?     Sin in high places has become devout,     Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lie     Straight up to Heaven, and calls it piety!     The pirate, watching from his bloody deck     The weltering galleon, heavy with the gold     Of Acapulco, holding death in check     While prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told;     The robber, kneeling where the wayside cross     On dark Abruzzo tells of life's dread loss     From his own carbine, glancing still abroad     For some new victim, offering thanks to God!     Rome, listening at her altars to the cry     Of midnight Murder, while her hounds of hell     Scour France, from baptized cannon and holy bell     And thousand-throated priesthood, loud and high,     Pealing Te Deums to the shuddering sky,     "Thanks to the Lord, who giveth victory!"     What prove these, but that crime was ne'er so black     As ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?     Satan is modest. At Heaven's door he lays     His evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phrase     And saintly posture, gives to God the praise     And honor of the monstrous progeny.     What marvel, then, in our own time to see     His old devices, smoothly acted o'er,     Official piety, locking fast the door     Of Hope against three million souls of men,     Brothers, God's children, Christ's redeemed, and then,     With uprolled eyeballs and on bended knee,     Whining a prayer for help to hide the key