n-touched by Truth--awakes and rubs his eyes.

Old Superstition, mother of cruel creeds,
O'er all the earth hath sown her dragon-teeth.
Lo centuries on centuries the seeds
Grew rank, and from them all the haggard breeds
Of Hate and Fear and Hell and cruel Death.
And still her sunken eyes glare on mankind;
Her livid lips grin horrible; her hands,
Shriveled to bone and sinew, clutch all lands
And with blind fear lead on or drive the blind.
Ah ignorance and fear go hand in hand,
Twin-born, and broadcast scatter hate and thorns,
They people earth with ghosts and hell with horns,
And sear the eyes of truth with burning brand.

Behold, the serried ranks of Truth advance,
And stubborn Science shakes her shining lance
Full in the face of stolid Ignorance.
But Superstition is a monster still--
An Hydra we may scotch but hardly kill;
For if with sword of Truth we lop a head,
How soon another groweth in its stead!
All men are slaves. Yea, some are slave to wine
And some to women, some to shining gold,
But all to habit and to customs old.
Around our stunted souls old tenets twine
And it is hard to straighten in the oak
The crook that in the sapling had its start:
The callous neck is glad to wear the yoke;
Nor reason rules the head, but aye the heart:
The head is weak, the throbbing heart is strong;
But where the heart is right the head is not far wrong.

Men have been learning error age on age,
And superstition is their heritage
Bequeathed from age to age and sire to son
Since the dim history of the world begun.
Trust paves the way for treachery to tread;
Under the cloak of virtue vices creep;
Fools chew the chaff while cunning eats the bread,
And wolves become the shepherds of the sheep.
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 al