Classic Poem

Book I. Ode XXXIV.

A Penitent Jacobin

P HILOSOPHY'S illumin'd fool ,
A polish'd Atheist of her school;
From Heaven seduc'd, and led astray,
I sold my faith to Condorcet ,
But I return to Nature's God,
And curse the paths which Error trod;
For I have seen the car of day
To Fiends of Hell its light convey;
Have seen that Murder hath prevail'd,
But in their turn it hath assail'd
The men of blood, and swept them clean,
With a reforming guillotine.
Till every new usurper's power
The many-headed wolves devour;
A moral thus I have attain'd,
That Man 's a Beast if unrestrain'd.