Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/101

 Itself, to show the sceptic scoffers

Who mock humanity’s weak sides

How subtly interest divides

The bands of hate; what vice exacts

Self-love or avarice counteracts;

How passions timely yield to reason’s

Mild influence or the change of seasons;

How nature’s nail now this whim stopping,

Now that, keeps all the cat-gut hopping,

Expectant lifted high, now sinking

Despairing, swearing, hoodwinking, drinking,

Protesting, resting, declaiming, blaming,

Now cutting short its own existence,

Its neighbour’s now, with the assistance

Of slugs and seconds, swords and scandals;

How past and present turn the handles

Of Time’s harmonious organetta,

Prelude to eternity’s bright operetta;

Brief, how all’s ordered for the best,

And heaven this world’s hid palimpsest.

But hold, rash pen, that hast invaded,

By too prolific fancy aided,

Epic’s untrod and sacred province!

Have I not shewn me lavish of hints

Thou art no goose-quill, nibbling mine,

To soar, Lord bless us! high o’er Parnassus?

No province thine sublime, divine,

Thy sphere’s provincial, wretched quillet

Of wingless brass; then sink—and fill it!

Off with thee, to the land of Yankees,

Lynching and long-bows, Mood’ and Sankies;

All civilisation’s latest hits