The Respectable Burgher
Since Reverend Doctors now declareThat clerks and people must prepareTo doubt if Adam ever were;To hold the flood a local scare;To argue, though the stolid stare,That everything had happened ereThe prophets to its happening sware;That David was no giant-slayer,Nor one to call a God-obeyerIn certain details we could spare,But rather was a debonairShrewd bandit, skilled as banjo-player:That Solomon sang the fleshly Fair,And gave the Church no thought whate’er;That Esther with her royal wear,And Mordecai, the son of Jair,And Joshua’s triumphs, Job’s despair,And Balaam’s ass’s bitter blare;Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace-flare,And Daniel and the den affair,And other stories rich and rare,Were writ to make old doctrine wearSomething of a romantic air:That the Nain widow’s only heir,And Lazarus with cadaverous glare(As done in oils by Piombo’s care)Did not return from Sheol’s lair:That Jael set a fiendish snare,That Pontius Pilate acted square,That never a sword cut Malchus’ earAnd (but for shame I must forbear)That — — did not reappear! . . .—Since thus they hint, nor turn a hair,All churchgoing will I forswear,And sit on Sundays in my chair,And read that moderate man Voltaire.
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