Edmund Peel

TO save the soul, to purchase Paradise,

By voluntary woe and wilful pain,

Tried in all ages, still is tried in vain.

The wheels of Juggernaut crush out the cries

Of hideous unavailing sacrifice,

As when to Moloch reeked the bloody plain!

As when the fire-devoted shrieked amain!

As when lean agony, in lowly guise,

Groaned on the lofty pillar!—Better pray

For light, than hold a taper unapproved,—

Than give a wrong direction to the blind!

Elijah laughed to scorn the frantic bray

And the red gashes, which to frenzy moved

Zeal without knowledge, plaguing human kind.