Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/112

 Worse than the venerable cocoons

Spun by the more primeval sinners,

And held inestimable boons

By those who go to church and masses?

What! silent all? Respond, ye asses!

They did but use the method ages,

So-called of faith, had found so useful.

To put it thus, the herb called sage is

Never amiss to stuff your goose full.

They but repristinated chimes

First sung in far far earlier times;

But in these days when nothing’s sacred

To press and Argus-eyed reporters,

And pious frauds are dipped in acrid

Reagents and corrosive waters

To extract the gold of truth—if any,

And coin it, faith fades from the many.

And to attempt to re-instate it

By setting those old bells a chiming,

In other words reintegrate it

By miracles or legend rhyming

With doubt and instantaneous lenses

At every angle fairly frenzies.

In this case ’twas a penny paper’s

Gross indiscretion broke the spell

And showed the theologic capers

Of fiction round the fabled well:

’Twas a mere oversight, the Arrow

Being ultramontane to the marrow.

But quite forgetful of the mythus,

To magnify the power of Rome,

It issued various chromo lithos