The Humourous Poetry of the English Language

303
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,