A Judith, there, turned Quakeress,
Sits ABBY in her modest dress,
Serving a table quietly,
As if that mild and downcast eye
Flashed never, with its scorn intense, 150
More than Medea's eloquence.
So the same force which shakes its dread
Far-blazing blocks o'er Ætna's head,
Along the wires in silence fares
And messages of commerce bears.
No nobler gift of heart and brain,
No life more white from spot or stain,
Was e'er on Freedom's altar laid
Than hers, the simple Quaker maid.
These last three (leaving in the lurch 160
Some other themes) assault the Church,
Who therefore writes them in her lists
As Satan's limbs and atheists;
For each sect has one argument
Whereby the rest to hell are sent,
Which serve them like the Graiæ's tooth,
Passed round in turn from mouth to mouth;—
If any ism should arise,
Then look on it with constable's eyes, 169
Tie round its neck a heavy athe-,
And give it kittens' hydropathy.
This trick with other (useful very) tricks
Is laid to the Babylonian meretrix,
But 'twas in vogue before her day
Wherever priesthoods had their way,
And Buddha's Popes with this struck dumb
The followers of Fi and Fum.
Well, if the world, with prudent fear
Pay God a seventh of the year,
And as a Farmer, who would pack
All his religion in one stack, 181
For this world works six days in seven
And idles on the seventh for Heaven,
Expecting, for his Sunday's sowing,
In the next world to go a-mowing
The crop of all his meeting-going;—
If the poor Church, by power enticed,
Finds none so infidel as Christ,
Quite backward reads his Gospel meek,
(As 'twere in Hebrew writ, not Greek,) 190
Fencing the gallows and the sword
With conscripts drafted from his word,
And makes one gate of Heaven so wide
That the rich orthodox might ride
Through on their camels, while the poor
Squirm through the scant, unyielding door,
Which, of the Gospel's straitest size,
Is narrower than bead-needles' eyes,
What wonder World and Church should call
The true faith atheistical? 200
Yet, after all, 'twixt you and me,
Dear Miller, I could never see
That Sin's and Error's ugly smirch
Stained the walls only of the Church;
There are good priests, and men who take
Freedom's torn cloak for lucre's sake;
I can't believe the Church so strong,
As some men do, for Right or Wrong,
But, for this subject (long and vext)
I must refer you to my next, 210
As also for a list exact
Of goods with which the Hall was packed.
READER! walk up at once (it will soon be too late), and buy at a perfectly ruinous rate.
A FABLE FOR CRITICS;
OR, BETTER—
I like, as a thing that the reader's first fancy may strike, an old fashioned title-page, such as presents a tabular view of the volumes contents,—
A GLANCE AT A FEW OF OUR LITERARY PROGENIES
(Mrs. Malaprop's Word)