Torches

They held their torches way up high,

  no one thought to ask them why.

They rallied for their nation’s pride,

  they sought to put their loss aside.

They disparaged those who deviate,

  but proclaimed they had no hate.

They saw the world through their own eyes,

  and thought themselves extremely wise.

They were right to bend the rules,

  to suppress the weak and the fools.

They knew the truth, or so they thought,

  and then forsook what reason brought.

They questioned not their Leader Dear,

  though he ruled with hate and fear.

In the end their hearts consumed,

  with the corpses of the doomed.

And they awoke to a shattered world,

  where the fires of Hell once had whirled.

Must their folly we repeat,

  or will we hear the Lord’s entreat?

LDT May 13, ‘23