Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/821

 WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED

If he departed as he came,

With no new light on love or liquor, Good sooth, the traveller was to blame,

And not the Vicarage, nor the Vicar.

His talk was like a spring, which runs

With rapid change from rocks to roses: It slipped from politics to puns,

It passed from Mahomet to Moses; Beginning with the laws which keep

The planets in their radiant courses, And ending with some precept deep

For dressing eels, or shoeing horses.

He was a shrewd and sound Divine,

Of loud Dissent the mortal terror; And when, by dint of page and line,

He 'stabli&rTd Truth, or startled Error, The Baptist found him far too deep,

The Deist sigh'd with saving sorrow; And the lean Levitc went to sleep,

And drcam'd of tasting pork to-morrow.

His sermons never said or show'd

That Earth is foul, that Heaven is gracious, Without refreshment on the road

From Jerome or from Athanasius: And sure a righteous zeal inspired

The hand and head that penn'd and plann'd them, For all who understood admired,

And some who did not understand them.

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