Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/32

 ’Tis well to reverence our great departed;

But when our comic side is thus paraded

In sire’s cast suits of fame, by sons degraded

Who clash their swords, themselves being chicken-hearted,

Like windbags puff themselves with those sires’ fame:

Methinks that fleas can boast themselves the same,

A lion tolerates in his royal mane,

That lion’s blood is circling in their vein!

This bungler has to journey many a rood

To fetch his proofs, to times before the flood;

For charlatans are more at home and able

Where all clear outlines ’neath a dappled haze

Subtract themselves from critics’ serious gaze.

But let us soberly review this fable:

I honour Hanuman, his fame assert,

Truth, though, will ne’er diminish his desert;

In Rama, in man’s form, god being embodied,

And not in ape, to man the preference gave.

This man a warrior was, with whom a brave

But mere ally, the apish hero plodded.

Apes’ prior claims! ’tis a mere craze that haunts him,

And in the magic bridge he vainly vaunts him;

’Twas, true enough, by apish hands erected

But Samudra, the sea god, first projected

The whole design; we ape folk, to complete it,

Brought nought but sturdy thews, which I’ve admitted,

Nor wit nor mind—i’faith, a feeble nimbus—

E’en trunks of elephants bear joists and timbers.

’Tis ludicrous to boast the modest share is

Ours in the Hindoos’ Pantheistic ritual

When every loon can claim a place in it. You all

Have heard how bulls are sacred in Benares.