Children, instead of vying to maintain
Parents, have beaten them, and even slain.
A traitor to human nature and hearth
Seduces her who owes to him her birth.
Lawyers, snapping ties sacred as of blood,
Have spun about their clients webs of fraud.
Misers have gone on hatching gold from gold—
A host of them—refusing to withhold
Grains from the hoard, although it were to save
Nearest that should be dearest from the grave.