The Humorous Poetry of the English Language; from Chaucer to Saxe Part 43

Perchance, the Demoiselle refused to molt The feathers in her head--at least till Monday; Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt A tract presented to be read on Sunday?-- But what is your opinion, Mrs, Grundy?

At whom did Leo struggle to get loose?

Who mourns through Monkey-tricks his damaged clothing?

Who has been hissed by the Canadian Goose?

On whom did Llama spit in utter loathing?

Some Smithfield Saint did jealous feelings tell To keep the Puma out of sight till Monday, Because he preyed extempore as well As certain wild Itinerants on Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

To me it seems that in the oddest way (Begging the pardon of each rigid Socius) Our would-be Keepers of the Sabbath-day Are like the Keepers of the brutes ferocious-- As soon the Tiger might expect to stalk About the grounds from Sat.u.r.day till Monday, As any harmless man to take a walk, If Saints could clap him in a cage on Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

In spite of all hypocrisy can spin, As surely as I am a Christian scion, I cannot think it is a mortal sin-- (Unless he's loose)--to look upon a lion.

I really think that one may go, perchance, To see a bear, as guiltless as on Monday-- (That is, provided that he did not dance)-- Bruin's no worse than bakin' on a Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

In spite of all the fanatic compiles, I can not think the day a bit diviner, Because no children, with forestalling smiles, Throng, happy, to the gates of Eden Minor-- It is not plain, to my poor faith at least, That what we christen "Natural" on Monday, The wondrous history of Bird and Beast, Can be unnatural because it's Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

Whereon is sinful fantasy to work?

The Dove, the winged Columbus of man's haven?

The tender Love-Bird--or the filial Stork?

The punctual Crane--the providential Raven?

The Pelican whose bosom feeds her young?

Nay, must we cut from Sat.u.r.day till Monday That feathered marvel with a human tongue, Because she does not preach upon a Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

The busy Beaver--that sagacious beast!

The Sheep that owned an Oriental Shepherd-- That Desert-s.h.i.+p, the Camel of the East, The horned Rhinoceros--the spotted Leopard-- The Creatures of the Great Creator's hand Are surely sights for better days than Monday-- The Elephant, although he wears no band, Has he no sermon in his trunk for Sunday?-- But what is your opinion, Mrs, Grundy?

What harm if men who burn the midnight-oil, Weary of frame, and worn and wan of feature, Seek once a week their spirits to a.s.soil, And s.n.a.t.c.h a glimpse of "Animated Nature?"

Better it were if, in his best of suits, The artisan, who goes to work on Monday, Should spend a leisure-hour among the brutes, Than make a beast of his own self on Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

Why, zounds! what raised so Protestant a fuss (Omit the zounds! for which I make apology) But that the Papists, like some Fellows, thus Had somehow mixed up Deus with their Theology?

Is Brahma's Bull--a Hindoo G.o.d at home-- A Papal Bull to be tied up till Monday?-- Or Leo, like his namesake, Pope of Rome, That there is such a dread of them on Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs. Grundy?

Spirit of Kant! have we not had enough To make Religion sad, and sour, and snubbish, But Saints Zoological must cant their stuff, As vessels cant their ballast-rattling rubbis.h.!.+

Once let the sect, triumphant to their text, Shut Nero up from Sat.u.r.day till Monday, And sure as fate they will deny us next To see the Dandelions on a Sunday-- But what is your opinion, Mrs, Grundy?

ODE TO RAE WILSON, ESQUIRE [Footnote: Who had, in one of his books, characterized some of Hood's verses as "profaneness and ribaldry."]

THOMAS HOOD.

"Close, close your eyes with holy dread, And weave a circle round him thrice; For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise!"--Coleridge.

"It's very hard them kind of men Won't let a body be."--Old Ballad.

A wanderer, Wilson, from my native land, Remote, O Rae, from G.o.dliness and thee, Where rolls between us the eternal sea, Besides some furlongs of a foreign sand-- Beyond the broadest Scotch of London Wall; Beyond the loudest Saint that has a call; Across the wavy waste between us stretched, A friendly missive warns me of a stricture, Wherein my likeness you have darkly etched, And though I have not seen the shadow sketched, Thus I remark prophetic on the picture.

I guess the features:--in a line to paint Their moral ugliness, I'm not a saint, Not one of those self-const.i.tuted saints, Quacks--not physicians--in the cure of souls, Censors who sniff out moral taints, And call the devil over his own coals-- Those pseudo Privy Councillors of G.o.d, Who write down judgments with a pen hard-nibbed: Ushers of Beelzebub's Black Rod, Commending sinners not to ice thick-ribbed, But endless flames, to scorch them like flax-- Yet sure of heaven themselves, as if they'd cribbed The impression of St. Peter's keys in wax!

Of such a character no single trace Exists, I know, in my fict.i.tious face; There wants a certain cast about the eye; A certain lifting of the nose's tip; A certain curling of the nether lip, In scorn of all that is, beneath the sky; In brief, it is an aspect deleterious, A face decidedly not serious, A face profane, that would not do at all To make a face at Exeter Hall-- That Hall where bigots rant, and cant, and pray, And laud each other face to face, Till every farthing-candle RAY Conceives itself a great gas-light of grace!

Well!--be the graceless lineaments confest I do enjoy this bounteous beauteous earth; And dote upon a jest "Within the limits of becoming mirth;"-- 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 G.o.dly 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; '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 G.o.ds, 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 wors.h.i.+p freely given to G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 w.i.l.l.y-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 pa.s.sage as they do in s.h.i.+ps.

One place there is--beneath the burial-sod, Where all mankind are equalized by death; Another place there is--the Fane of G.o.d, 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 h.e.l.l, and represent the Devil!

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, G.o.dless, savage; A very Guy, deserving fire and f.a.ggots,-- 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 G.o.d 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 ca.s.sock, And, pa.s.sing by the customary ha.s.sock Kneel down remote upon the simple sod, And sue in forma pauperis to G.o.d.