The ancient Druids offer’d to their gods
A human sacrifice; and criminals
On their stone alters bled beneath the knife
The priestly arm upraised, rudely to plunge
Into an erring brother’s living heart,
Or else, in osier cages first confined,
Expired in flames lit by some priestly hand:
And we, whose scaffolds oft have reek’d with gore
Of earth’s best benefactors; we, whose cells
Have prison’d up the patriot and divine;
And who still strangle with the hangman’s rope
To teach the sanctity of human life;
Ard ever study how to cheat in trade
Or kill in war with most proficiency,
Self-rightous hypocrites who but deceive
Ourselves and one another; we despise
The Druid for his paganism, meanwhile
We worship Gold as though it were a god,
And call ourselves good Christians

Peter Proletarius

Proletarius was one of the pen names of the 19th century printer, publisher, author, poet, historian and radical, George Markham Tweddell.

Tweddell also wrote;

“Scoff not at antiquarian research,
As useless in results; for it throws light
Upon the darkness of the past to aid
Humanity along its devious way”