Ceremony
Though Death’s depicted as a black-robed knave,
He casts a rosy hue on New York’s lost:
"The innocents, the heroes and the brave!"
He says. "How measureless the human cost!"
The kindest words are spoken of the slain,
Each one a seeming angel without fault,
As if none ever caused another pain
Or wielded power in villainous assault.
But murder's unseen hand is hard at work
Around the clock, and though the nations gaped
At one event, ongoing horrors lurk,
For one in five is by a parent raped.
Two million infants more we slay each year,
A toll far worse than Herod did exact.
"A woman's right to murder!" is our cheer.
To Moloch is our sacrifice compact.
Beside his scalpel on the altar shrine,
We place the firearm in idolatry.
Cain is the prototype, first of our line,
That bastion of civil liberty!
Three thousand murders on a single day
In Fortune's wheel represent one cog.
However sickening this foul display,
'Tis but a footnote in the devil's log.
Atrocities of peacetime we commit
In mundane ways, but where is the alarm?
Though stricken by so palpable a hit,
Domestically we do ourselves most harm.
