The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

299
No solemn sanctimonious face I pull,
Nor think I'm pious when I'm only bilious--
Nor study in my sanctum supercilious
To frame a Sabbath Bill or forge a Bull,
I pray for grace--repent each sinful act--
Peruse, but underneath the rose, my Bible;
And love my neighbor, far too well, in fact,
To call and twit him with a godly tract
That's turned by application to a libel.
My heart ferments not with the bigot's leaven,
All creeds I view with toleration thorough,
And have a horror of regarding heaven
As any body's rotten borough.
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;