Who are the Herods of today?

The Herods of Today

A Herod, fearful for his throne,

Commanded in his day 

His hireling band in Bethlehem,

The little babes to slay, 

Begetting mourning in the land,

Thus drenched in infant gore, 

Of Rachels weeping for their kin,

Whom they should see no more.

We shrink with horror from the thought

Of what that Herod did—

Yet in our modes of modern life

Abaddon's form is bid, 

And though we sadly mourn for those

Whom he hath borne away, 

The slaughter of the innocents

Goes on from day to day.

Dame Fashion wields the venomed shafts

These tender plants to kill, 

While liquor and the cigarette

Their deadly mission fill—

 And many modern factories

Are juggernauts to slay, 

And sickness ignorance bespread

Out-Herods him today.

A thousand forms of needless death

Are stalking through the land, 

And Herod, in a modern dress,

Still issues his command 

In fashion's mandates armed with power

The race to re-enslave, 

Till Azrael leads to freedom through

The pathway of the grave.

W. H. Smith, The Frailties of Humanity, and Other Poems, 1894, The Irving Company, New York, The Herods of Today, 94