Athens feared the cloutless Socrates,
Because he said what he had to say;
He drank the hemlock cheerfully,
And Athens is known by him today.
Wycliff wrote the word of god
In the English tongue;
Burnt at the stake, he is now
The English immortals among.
Copernicus found god's own earth
Moving round the sun;
The truth of his discovery
Pushed back religion.
Darwin disastrously dislodged
The postulates of Creation;
Reviled, he remains our beacon light
To undefeated education.
Why may we then acquiesce tonguelessly
To the pulpit and the throne?
Darker the times the brighter
The light of truth has shone.
Badri Raina