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 Mawworms 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 knolled to church."
Dear bells! how sweet the sound 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 fluttered by the wings of Cherubim.
Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn;
And lost to sight the 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 every word,
With no more piety than other people—
A daw's not reckoned 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 any thing 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;
On 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!
'T was 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 axed sure-LY a sum prodigious!
But being so particular religious,
Why, THAT you see, put master on his guard!"
Church is "a little heaven 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,
Even the poor Pagan's homage to the sun
I would not harshly scorn, lest even there
I spurned some elements of Christian prayer—
An aim, though 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—
Humilty.
Such, unto Papists, Jews or Turbaned 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 common-place-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 further!
Worthless are all such pilgrimages—very!
If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive
The humans heats and rancor to revive
That at the Sepulcher 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
Haunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak.
Why leave a serious, moral, pious home,
Scotland, renewned for sanctity of old,
Far distant Catholics to rate and scold
For—doing as the Romans do at Rome?
With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit
The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers,
About the graceless images to flit,
And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers,
Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops?—
People who hold such absolute opinions
Should stay at home in Protestant dominions,
Not travel like male Mrs. Trollopes.