What else? No part I take in party fray,
With tropes from Billingsgate's slang-whanging Tartars,
I fear no Pope—and let great Ernest play
At Fox and Goose with Fox's Martyrs!
I own I laugh at over-righteous men,
I own I shake my sides at ranters,
And treat sham Abr'am saints with wicked banters,
I even own, that there are times—but then
It's when I 've got my wine—I say d—— canters!
I've no ambition to enact the spy
On fellow-souls, a spiritual Pry—
'Tis said that people ought to guard their noses
Who thrust them into matters none of theirs
And, though no delicacy discomposes
Your saint, yet I consider faith and prayers
Among the privatest of men's affairs.
I do not hash the Gospel in my books,
And thus upon the public mind intrude it,
As if I thought, like Otahei-tan cooks,
No food was fit to eat till I had chewed it.
On Bible stilts I don't affect to stalk;
Nor lard with Scripture my familiar talk—
For man may pious texts repeat,
And yet religion have no inward seat;
'Tis not so plain as the old Hill of Howth,
A man has got his belly full of meat
Because he talks with victuals in his mouth!
Mere verbiage—it is not worth a carrot!
Why, Socrates or Plato—where 's the odds?—
Once taught a Jay to supplicate the gods,
And made a Polly-theist of a Parrot!
A mere professor, spite of all his cant, is
Not a whit better than a Mantis—
An insect, of what clime I can't determine,
That lifts its paws most parson-like, and thence,
By simple savages—through sheer pretense—
Is reckoned quite a saint among the vermin.
But where's the reverence, or where the nous,
To ride on one's religion through the lobby,
Whether as stalking-horse or hobby,
To show its pious paces to "the house."
I honestly confess that I would hinder
The Scottish member's legislative rigs,
That spiritual Pindar,
Who looks on erring souls as straying pigs,
That must be lashed by law, wherever found,
And driven to church as to the parish pound.
I do confess, without reserve or wheedle,
I view that groveling idea as one
Worthy some parish clerk's ambitious son,
A charity-boy who longs to be a beadle.
On such a vital topic sure 'tis odd
How much a man can differ from his neighbor,
One wishes worship freely given to God,
Another wants to make it statute-labor—
The broad distinction in a line to draw,
As means to lead us to the skies above,
You say—Sir Andrew and his love of law,
And I—the Saviour with his law of love.
Spontaneously to God should tend the soul,
Like the magnetic needle to the Pole;
But what were that intrinsic virtue worth,
Suppose some fellow with more zeal than knowledge,
Fresh from St. Andrew's college,
Should nail the conscious needle to the north?
I do confess that I abhor and shrink
Prom schemes, with a religious willy-nilly,
That frown upon St. Giles' sins, but blink
The peccadilloes of all Piccadilly—
My soul revolts at such bare hypocrisy,
And will not, dare not, fancy in accord
The Lord of hosts with an exclusive lord
Of this world's aristocracy,
It will not own a nation so unholy,
As thinking that the rich by easy trips
May go to heaven, whereas the poor and lowly
Must work their passage as they do in ships.
One place there is—beneath the burial-sod,
Where all mankind are equalized by death;
Another place there is—the Fane of God,
Where all are equal who draw living breath;—
Juggle who will ELSEWHERE with his own soul,
Playing the Judas with a temporal dole—
He who can come beneath that awful cope,
In the dread presence of a Maker just,
Who metes to every pinch of human dust
One even measure of immortal hope—
He who can stand within that holy door,
With soul unbowed by that pure spirit-level,
And frame unequal laws for rich and poor,—
Might sit for Hell, and represent the Devil!