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C J Dennis - The Age of Reason
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Whene`er I read some savage tale
   Of punishment devised
By tyrants in an olden day,
   When serfs were victimised,
I reverently tell myself:-
   "Thank God, we`re civilised!"

Thank God, those idols, grimmer far
   Than gods of wood or stone,
Unthinking Hate and brute Revenge,
   With all the seeds they`ve sown,
Are cast to earth, and Reason sits
   With Mercy on the throne.

Calm Reason sits upon the throne
   And fashions righteous laws,
And in our blessed Age of Light
   It ever bids us pause
And, ere we plan the remedy,
   Unearth the Primal Cause.

It seeks not, in a brutish rage,
   To flog the witless fool;
The rack, the pillory are gone,
   The witches` ducking stool;
And Reason builds no gallows for
   Heredity`s poor tool.

"Reform lies not in punishment!"
   So saith the modern sage.
"No remedy for evil holds
   Blind Hate or Savage Rage.
The whipping-post, the darkened cell
   Are of a darkre age."

So Reason saith; so Mercy saith;
   And, having said, withdraw.
(O brothers in this Noble Age
   That there should be a flaw!)
And to the vacant throne there steps
   The thing men call the Law.

The Law devised by kings long-dead
   And superstitious priests,
Whose code considered but revenge,
   With bloody rites and feasts --
The ancient Law, bequeathed by men
   Scarce risen from the beasts.

But e`en before such kings and priests
   Infested our poor earth,
Long ages ere some bleeding wretch
   Excited their loud mirth,
A thing, half man, with crooked brain,
   It chanced, was given birth.

And lo! this thing begat him sons,
   And their sons sons again.
And on and on, till sturdier
   And cleaner grew the strain.
Till in the breed, for many an age,
   The taint had dormant lain.

For countless ages it, mayhap,
   The fatal taint had missed,
Till, in our day, a babe was born
   With some strange mental twist.
A thing for all men`s sympathy --
   A foredoomed atavist.

And that he sinned against our code
   And harmed a fellow-man
(Lord knows what Nature is about
   To work on such a plan!)
Lo, he is seized on by the Law
   And placed beneath the ban!

And what has reason now to say,
   Chief of our modern gods?
And Mercy?  "Keep the man apart,
   But harm not such poor clods?"
"Nay," saith the Law, "we`ll truss him up
   And scourge his back with rods!"

And so they take the last poor son
   Of all that tainted host,
And try to exorcise the taint
   There at the whipping-post.
This is the Age of Reason, friends!
   It is our proudest boast.


And what of those great men on high
   Who said this thing should be?
What of the Law`s high officers
   Who voiced the brute decree?
Shall such ones not become the mark
   For scornful obloquy?


Nay, gentle brothers, blame them not --
   Blame is the whip of fools --
For here again we mark in them
   Heredity`s poor tools,
The eld rings with their sires` demand,
   Calling for ducking stools.

And so, when all is said and done,
   We end where we began.
We must leave Nature to proceed
   With her age-honored plan.
E`en I who speak may be the son
   Of some strange-fashioned man.

Because he had a twisted form
   A man of old was slain;
They flog him in our Age of Light
   For his poor twisted brain;
And, `spite my words, the chances are
   They`ll do the same again.

Still, when I read some savage tale
   Of punishment devised
By tyrants of an olden day,
   When serfs were victimised,
I feel it in my heart to say -
   "Thank God, we`re civilised."
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