When the Leaves Come Out/You Preachers of "Morals"

by Ralph Hosea Chaplin

YOU PREACHERS OF "MORALS"

You bolster Exploitation with your creed
Though blood upon its whiplash never dries.
You do the work of hired thugs and spies;
Like them you serve the System for your "feed."
The World's great Wrong cries out: you do not heed,
But drivel rot with heaven-uplifted eyes,
Then creep away behind a cloud of lies
To kiss the palsied hand of murderous Greed.

This is the work for which you get your pay:
To keep the world unchanged in sullen "peace"
Where serf-men toil at tasks that never cease,
Heartbrokenly from bitter day to day—
The Crime upheld by preachers and police
Where Lust, unhindered, battens on its prey!