FullReads

Such are the solemn sentiments, O Rae,
In your last Journey-Work, perchance you ravage,
Seeming, but in more courtly terms, to say
I’m but a heedless, creedless, godless savage;
A very Guy, deserving fire and faggots,–
A Scoffer, always on the grin,
And sadly given to the mortal sin
Of liking Maw-worms less than merry maggots!

The humble records of my life to search,
I have not herded with mere pagan beasts;
But sometimes I have “sat at good men’s feasts,”
And I have been “where bells have knoll’d to church.”
Dear bells! how sweet the sounds of village bells
When on the undulating air they swim!
Now loud as welcomes! faint, now, as farewells!
And trembling all about the breezy dells
As flutter’d by the wings of Cherubim.
Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn;
And lost to sight th’ ecstatic lark above
Sings, like a soul beatified, of love,–
With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon;–
O Pagans, Heathens, Infidels and Doubters!
If such sweet sounds can’t woo you to religion,
Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters?

A man may cry “Church! Church!” at ev’ry word,
With no more piety than other people–
A daw’s not reckon’d a religious bird
Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple.
The Temple is a good, a holy place,
But quacking only gives it an ill savor;
While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace,
And bring religion’s self into disfavor!

Behold yon servitor of God and Mammon,
Who, binding up his Bible with his Ledger,
Blends Gospel texts with trading gammon,
A black-leg saint, a spiritual hedger,
Who backs his rigid Sabbath, so to speak,
Against the wicked remnant of the week,
A saving bet against his sinful bias–
“Rogue that I am,” he whispers to himself,
“I lie–I cheat–do anything for pelf,
But who on earth can say I am not pious?”

In proof how over-righteousness re-acts,
Accept an anecdote well based on facts.
One Sunday morning–(at the day don’t fret)–
In riding with a friend to Ponder’s End
Outside the stage, we happened to commend
A certain mansion that we saw To Let.
“Ay,” cried our coachman, with our talk to grapple
“You’re right! no house along the road comes nigh it!
‘Twas built by the same man as built yon chapel
And master wanted once to buy it,–
But t’other driv the bargain much too hard–
He ax’d sure-ly a sum purdigious!
But being so particular religious,
Why, that, you see, put master on his guard!”
Church is “a little heav’n below,
I have been there and still would go,”–
Yet I am none of those, who think it odd
A man can pray unbidden from the cassock,
And, passing by the customary hassock,
Kneel down remote upon the simple sod,
And sue in forma pauperis to God.

As for the rest,–intolerant to none,
Whatever shape the pious rite may bear,
Ev’n the poor Pagan’s homage to the Sun
I would not harshly scorn, lest even there
I spurn’d some elements of Christian pray’r–
An aim, tho’ erring, at a “world ayont,”
Acknowledgment of good–of man’s futility,
A sense of need, and weakness, and indeed
That very thing so many Christians want–
Humility.

Such, unto Papists, Jews or turban’d Turks,
Such is my spirit–(I don’t mean my wraith!)
Such, may it please you, is my humble faith;
I know, full well, you do not like my works!

I have not sought, ’tis true, the Holy Land,
As full of texts as Cuddie Headrigg’s mother,
The Bible in one hand,
And my own commonplace-book in the other–
But you have been to Palestine–alas!
Some minds improve by travel, others, rather,
Resemble copper wire, or brass,
Which gets the narrower by going farther!
Worthless are all such Pilgrimages–very!
If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive
The human heats and rancor to revive
That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury.
A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on,
To see a Christian creature graze at Sion,
Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full,
Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke,
At crippled Papistry to butt and poke,
Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull
Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak!