IPSOS CUSTODES We were an ignorant people.

Out of a gloom we came Hungering, striving, feasting--vanishing into the same.
Came to us your foreloopers, told us the gloom was bad, Spoke of the Light that might be--simply it could be had-- Knowledge and wealth and freedom, plenty and peace and play, And at all the price of obedience.

"Listen and learn and obey," We were told, "and the gloom shall be lifted.

Ignorance surely is shame." We listened to your foreloopersy till presently Cadis* came.
We were an ignorant people.

Our law was "an eye for an eye," And he who wronged should right the wrong, and he who stole should die-- Bad law the Cadis told us, based on the fall of man; And they set us to building law-courts on the Pangermanic plan-- Courts where the gloom of ages should be pierced, said they, with Light And scientific theory displace wrong views of Right.
The Cadis' law was writ in books that only they could read, But what should we know of the strings to that?
'Twas gloom when we agreed.
We were an ignorant people.