Official Piety

A pious magistrate! sound his praise throughoutThe wondering churches. Who shall henceforth doubtThat the long-wished millennium draweth nigh?Sin in high places has become devout,Tithes mint, goes painful-faced, and prays its lieStraight up to Heaven, and calls it piety!

The pirate, watching from his bloody deckThe weltering galleon, heavy with the goldOf Acapulco, holding death in checkWhile prayers are said, brows crossed, and beads are told;The robber, kneeling where the wayside crossOn dark Abruzzo tells of life’s dread lossFrom his own carbine, glancing still abroadFor some new victim, offering thanks to God!Rome, listening at her altars to the cryOf midnight Murder, while her hounds of hellScour France, from baptized cannon and holy bellAnd 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 blackAs ghostly cheer and pious thanks to lack?Satan is modest. At Heaven’s door he laysHis evil offspring, and, in Scriptural phraseAnd saintly posture, gives to God the praiseAnd honor of the monstrous progeny.What marvel, then, in our own time to seeHis old devices, smoothly acted o’er,—Official piety, locking fast the doorOf 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!