When you have bravely mastered,
You’ll find the best of all your blood
Flows in my veins—the bastard!
The following poem is by a Phelim Macdougall. The power of his muse cannot be said to be of so high an order as his moral suggestions. But poetry and severe ethics do not always go together. So we can afford some literary and religious sympathies to poor Phelim in his fifteenth century gropings after light:—
’Tis not good to travel on Sunday,
Whoever the Sabbath would keep;
Not good to be of ill-famed race;
Not good is a dirty woman;
Not good to write without learning;
Not good are grapes when sour;