HYPOCRITE LECTEUR

      As good as are the teachings in your Book,
      Exalting love, compassion, piety
      And faith, too often zealots have mistook
      Your holy gospel, wreaking misery,
      Their righteous zeal enflaming holy war,
      Crusades against unsaved barbarians
      Benighted by the totems they adore,
      Beguiled by some perverse Satanic trance.
      The seamy underside of such belief
      Reveals the truth of your duality,
      The buried root of your perennial grief—
      Your innate penchant for hypocrisy:
           Above all other woes, you’re self-deceived
           Believing others’ ways are ill conceived.

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