FullReads

12.
And all these meet at levees;–
Dinners convivial and political;–
Suppers of epic poets;–teas,
Where small talk dies in agonies;– 205
Breakfasts professional and critical;

13.
Lunches and snacks so aldermanic
That one would furnish forth ten dinners,
Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic,
Lest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic 210
Should make some losers, and some winners–

45.
At conversazioni–balls–
Conventicles–and drawing-rooms–
Courts of law–committees–calls
Of a morning–clubs–book-stalls– 215
Churches–masquerades–and tombs.

15.
And this is Hell–and in this smother
All are damnable and damned;
Each one damning, damns the other;
They are damned by one another, 220
By none other are they damned.

16.
‘Tis a lie to say, ‘God damns’! (1)
Where was Heaven’s Attorney General
When they first gave out such flams?
Let there be an end of shams, 225
They are mines of poisonous mineral.

17.
Statesmen damn themselves to be
Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls
To the auction of a fee;
Churchmen damn themselves to see 230
God’s sweet love in burning coals.

18.
The rich are damned, beyond all cure,
To taunt, and starve, and trample on
The weak and wretched; and the poor
Damn their broken hearts to endure 235
Stripe on stripe, with groan on groan.

19.
Sometimes the poor are damned indeed
To take,–not means for being blessed,–
But Cobbett’s snuff, revenge; that weed
From which the worms that it doth feed 240
Squeeze less than they before possessed.

20.
And some few, like we know who,
Damned–but God alone knows why–
To believe their minds are given
To make this ugly Hell a Heaven; 245
In which faith they live and die.

21.
Thus, as in a town, plague-stricken,
Each man be he sound or no
Must indifferently sicken;
As when day begins to thicken, 250
None knows a pigeon from a crow,–

22.
So good and bad, sane and mad,
The oppressor and the oppressed;
Those who weep to see what others
Smile to inflict upon their brothers; 255
Lovers, haters, worst and best;

23.
All are damned–they breathe an air,
Thick, infected, joy-dispelling:
Each pursues what seems most fair,
Mining like moles, through mind, and there 260
Scoop palace-caverns vast, where Care
In throned state is ever dwelling.

PART 4.

SIN.

1.
Lo. Peter in Hell’s Grosvenor Square,
A footman in the Devil’s service!
And the misjudging world would swear 265
That every man in service there
To virtue would prefer vice.