Gored by its pricks, Hindu mothers, their own babes,
In innocence swathed, into the seething waves,
Of the River Ganges, writhing, religiously they fling,
While to this river god their hymns they sing,
Galled by conscience the monk and anchorite,
In dark caves, out of human sight,
Tear their flesh and do themselves every spite
To humiliate themselves in heaven’s sight.
What a freak conscience has proved to be,
Is illustrated in a story by Heinrich Heine,