The Herods of Today
A Herod, fearful for his throne,
Commanded in his day
His hireling band in Bethlehem,
The little babes to slay,
Begetting mourning in the land,
Thus drenched in infant gore,
Of Rachels weeping for their kin,
Whom they should see no more.
We shrink with horror from the thought
Of what that Herod did;
Yet in our modes of modern life
Abaddon's form is bid,
And though we sadly mourn for those
Whom he hath borne away,
The slaughter of the innocents
Goes on from day to day.
Dame Fashion wields the venomed shafts
These tender plants to kill,
While liquor and the cigarette
Their deadly mission fill;
And many modern factories
Are juggernauts to slay,
And sickness ignorance bespread
Out-Herods him today.
A thousand forms of needless death
Are stalking through the land,
And Herod, in a modern dress,
Still issues his command
In fashion's mandates armed with power
The race to re-enslave,
Till Azrael leads to freedom through
The pathway of the grave.
W. H. Smith, The Frailties of Humanity, and Other Poems, 1894, The Irving Company, New York, The Herods of Today, 94
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