The Masks of Superstition

Behold the monster with a name
For every feature of her malformation,
And every fig-leaf lie that hides her shame!
Faith, hope, religion, truth and inspiration,
God’s love, God’s minister, his consuming flame,
Priestcraft and bigotry, and, befitting well,
Mother of harlots, the Infallible!
    But under every name
    Immutably the same,
High priestess of the rack and rod,
Black Superstition, with the brand of hell –
The flame-sword of her demon-god –
Co-heir and latest champion
Of midnight’s black, beleaguered throne,
Sweating malignant dew on every flowery sod.

As a gray nun behold her now,
Wearing Truth’s name upon her shameless brow,
Beguiling souls of innocents
Into her gloomy temples, where in dense
Miasms of incense-smoke the pure warm breath
Of natural love is smothered to chill death;
The tender hearts that should have poured
Sunshine and melody on human homes
Are given to specter saints, the dismal gnomes
Of those black caverns, or, with rites abhorred,
Are wed in mystic mockery to their Lord,
Whose haggard corse hangs over them! Ah, me!
Well do ye name his rood “The Accursed Tree!”

Now clothed in scarlet, with her snaky locks
Bound by that frontlet, “Mystery!” see her lead
Her frantic votaries to their damning deed,
Hurling pure maidens and mothers from the rocks,
Transfixing shrieking babes on daggers blest
By the infernal priest — she, all the while
With a scowl malign, or more malignant smile,
Waving her hideous corse-god’s symbol flag
O’er murdered victims down the dripping crag!
What though her banner flaunts the mystic dove;
Her faith’s anointing is a bloody chrism;
Wrath is her font, and fire her fierce baptism;
But darker than her vengeance is her love!
Less terrible the clank of penal chains,
The dungeon-darkness, and the scourge that drains
The blood of her denier, than “the dim
Religious light” of temples, the damb weight
Of her soul-bondage, and that whip her grim
Defenders’ braid from flashes of God’s hate —
Sulphur and fire and never-ending woe!
The soul she hates causing the glorious hymn
Of inward peace and victory over fate;
The soul she loves is blasted in the glow
Of her devouring kiss; its living breath
Choked in the dragon rings of her embrace.
Her foes are free – ay! jubilant even in death –
Her children slaves, though in the jewel-blaze
Of her barbaric heaven, whose golden streets
And crystal parapets
Can ill replace, with their fierce rays,
Our tender eves and dewy violets,
The hills grass-green, and mossy, cool retreats,
Where the brook warbles, bird-like, and the song
Of bobolink ripples, twinkling all day long!