Cant for religion, sounding words for truth,
Fraud leads to fortune, gelt for guilt atones,
No care for hoary age or tender youth,
For widows' tears or helpless orphans' groans.

The people rage, and work their own wild will,
They stone the prophets, drag their highest down,
And as they smite, with savage folly still
Smile at their work, those dead eyes wear no frown.

The sage of "Drainfield"[1] tills a barren soil,
And reaps no harvest where he sowed the seed,
He has but exile for long years of toil;
Nor voice in council, though his children bleed.

And never more shall "Redcliffs"[2] oaks rejoice,
Now bowed with grief above their master's bier;
Faction and party stilled that mighty voice,
Which yet could teach us wisdom, could we hear.

And "Woodland's"[3] harp is mute: the gray, old man
Broods by his lonely hearth and weaves no song;
Or, if he sing, the note is sad and wan,
Like the pale face of one who's suffered long.

So all earth's teachers have been overborne
By the coarse crowd, and fainting; droop or die;
They bear the cross, their bleeding brows the thorn,
And ever hear the clamor--"Crucify!"