AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE.I.Somewhere in India, upon a time,(Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse)There dwelt two saints whose privilege sublimeIt was to sit and watch the world grow worse,Their only care (in that delicious clime)At proper intervals to pray and curse;Pracrit the dialect each prudent brotherUsed for himself, Damnonian for the other.II.One half the time of each was spent in prayingFor blessings on his own unworthy head,The other half in fearfully portrayingWhere certain folks would go when they were dead;This system of exchanges—there's no sayingTo what more solid barter 'twould have led,But that a river, vext with boils and swellingsAt rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings,III.So they two played at wordy battledoreAnd kept a curse forever in the air,Flying this way or that from shore to shore;No other labor did this holy pair,Clothed and supported from the lavish storeWhich crowds lanigerous brought with daily care;They toiled not neither did they spin; their biasWas tow'rd the harder task of being pious.IV.Each from his hut rushed six score times a day,Like a great canon of the Church full-rammedWith cartridge theologic, (so to say,)Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammedHis hovel's door behind him in a wayThat to his foe said plainly—you'llbe damned;And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strongThe two D—D'd each other all day long.V.One was a dancing Dervise, a Mohammedan,The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist;One kept his whatd'yecallit and his Ramadan,Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and laws of hisTransfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed anOld top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fistWith nails six inches long, yet lifted notHis eyes from off his navel's mystic knot.VI."Who whirls not round six thousand times an hourWill go," screamed Ahmed, "to the evil place;May he eat dirt, and may the dog and GiaourDefile the graves of him and all his race;Allah loves faithful souls and gives them powerTo spin till they are purple in the face;Some folks get you know what, but he that pure isEarns Paradise and ninety thousand houries."VII."Upon the silver mountain, South by East,Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean;He loves those men whose nails are still increased,Who all their lives keep ugly, foul and lean;'Tis of his grace that not a bird or beastAdorned with claws like mine was ever seen;The suns and stars are Brahma's thoughts divineEven as these trees I seem to see are mine."VIII."Thou seem'st to see, indeed!" roared Ahmed back."Were I but once across this plaguy stream,With a stout sapling in my hand, one whackOn those lank ribs would rid thee of that Dream!Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecacTo my soul's stomach; could'st thou grasp the schemeOf true redemption, thou would'st know that DeityWhirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity.IX."And this it is which keeps our earth here goingWith all the stars."—"O, vile! but there's a placePrepared for such; to think of Brahma throwingWorlds like a juggler's balls up into Space!Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowingIs e'er allowed that silence to effaceWhich broods around Brahma, and our earth, 'tis known,Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this stone."X.So they kept up their banning amebean,When suddenly came floating down the streamA youth whose face like an incarnate pæanGlowed, 'twas so full of grandeur and of gleam;"If therebegods, then, doubtless, this must be one."Thought both at once, and then began to scream,"Surely, whate'er immortals know, thou knowest,Decide between us twain before thou goest!"XI.The youth was drifting in a slim canoeMost like a huge white waterlily's petal,But neither of our theologians knewWhereof 'twas made; whether of heavenly metalUnknown, or of a vast pearl split in twoAnd hollowed, was a point they could not settle;'Twas good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruitIn after years of many a tart dispute.XII.There were no wings upon the stranger's shouldersAnd yet he seemed so capable of risingThat, had he soared like thistledown, beholdersHad thought the circumstance noways surprising;Enough that he remained, and, when the scoldersHailed him as umpire in their vocal prize-ring,The painter of his boat he lightly threwAround a lotos-stem, and brought her to.XIII.The strange youth had a look as if he mightHave trod far planets where the atmosphere,(Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light,Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here;His air was that of a cosmopoliteIn the wide universe from sphere to sphere;Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty)An officer of Saturn's guards off duty.XIV.Both saints began to unfold their tales at once,Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile,That they might seize his ear;fool!knave!anddunce!Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencilIn a child's fingers; voluble as duns,They jabbered like the stones on that immense hillIn the Arabian Nights; until the strangerBegan to think his ear-drum in some danger.XV.In general those who nothing have to sayContrive to spend the longest time in doing it;They turn and vary it in every way,Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it,ragoutingit;Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay,Then let it slip to be again pursuing it;They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it,Refute it, flout it, swear to't, prove it, doubt it.XVI.Our saints had practised for some thirty years;Their talk, beginning with a single stem,Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers,Colonies of digression, and, in them,Germs of yet new migrations; once by the ears,They could convey damnation in a hem,And blow the pitch of premise-priming offLong syllogistic batteries, with a cough.XVII.Each had a theory that the human earA providential tunnel was, which ledTo a huge vacuum, (and surely hereThey showed some knowledge of the general head,)For cant to be decanted through, a mereAuricular canal or raceway to be fedAll day and night, in sunshine and in shower,From their vast heads of milk-and-water-power.XVIII.The present being a peculiar case,Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted,Put his spurred hobby through its very pace,Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted,Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his faceLooked scorn too nicely shaded, to be shouted,And, with each inch of person and of vesture,Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture.XIX.At length, when their breath's end was come about,And both could, now and then, just gasp "impostor!"Holding their heads thrust menacingly out,As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture,The stranger smiled and said, "Beyond a doubt'Tis fortunate, my friends, that you have lost yourUnited parts of speech, or it had beenImpossible for me to get between.XX."Produce! says Nature,—what have you produced?A new straitwaistcoat for the human mind;Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, arteried, juicedAs other men? yet, faithless to your kind,Rather like noxious insects you are usedTo puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the rindLaying your creed-eggs whence in time there springConsumers new to eat and buzz and sting.XXI."Work! you have no conception how 'twill sweetenYour views of Life and Nature, God and Man;Had you been forced to earn what you have eaten,Your heaven had shown a less dyspeptic plan;At present your whole function is to eat tenAnd talk ten times as rapidly as you can;Were your shape true to cosmogonic laws,You would be nothing but a pair of jaws.XXII."Of all the useless beings in creationThe earth could spare most easily you bakersOf little clay gods, formed in shape and fashionPrecisely in the image of their makers;Why, it would almost move a saint to passion,To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakersOf God's own image in their brother men,Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when,XXIII."Of God's existence; one's digestion's worse—So makes a god of vengeance and of blood;Another—but no matter, they reverseCreation's plan, out of their own vile mudPat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, or curseWhoever worships not; each keeps his studOf texts which wait with saddle on and bridleTo hunt down atheists to their ugly idol.XXIV."This, I perceive, has been your occupation;You should have been more usefully employed;All men are bound to earn their daily ration,Where States make not that primal contract voidBy cramps and limits; simple devastationIs the worm's task, and what he has destroyedHis monument; creating is man's workAnd that, too, something more than mist and murk."XXV.So having said, the youth was seen no more,And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher,Cried, "That was aimed at thee, thou endless bore,Idle and useless as the growth of moss overA rotting tree-trunk!" "I would square that scoreFull soon," replied the Dervise, "could I cross overAnd catch thee by the beard! Thy nails I'd trimAnd make thee work, as was advised by him."XXVI."Work? Am I not at work from morn till nightSounding the deeps of oracles umbilicalWhich for man's guidance never come to light,With all their various aptitudes, until I call?""And I, do I not twirl from left to rightFor conscience' sake? Is that no work? Thou silly gull,He had thee in his eye; 'twas GabrielSent to reward my faith, I know him well."XXVII."'Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!" and soThe good old quarrel was begun anew;One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe,Had but the other darned to call it blue;Nor were the followers who fed them slowTo treat each other with their curses, too,Each hating t'other (moves it tears or laughter?)Because he thought him sure of hell hereafter.XXVIII.At last some genius built a bridge of boatsOver the stream, and Ahmed's zealots filedAcross, upon a mission to (cut throatsAnd) spread religion pure and undefiled;They sowed the propagandist's wildest oats,Cutting off all, down to the smallest child,And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies,To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses.XXIX.All gone except their saint's religious hops,Which he kept up with more than common flourish;But these, however satisfying cropsFor the inner man, were not enough to nourishThe body politic, which quickly dropsReserve in such sad juncture, and turns currish;So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the famineWhere'er the popular voice could edge a damn in.XXX.At first he pledged a miracle quite boldly,And, for a day or two, they growled and waited:But, finding that this kind of manna coldlySat on their stomachs, they ere long beratedThe saint for still persisting in that old lie,Till soon the whole machine of saintship grated,Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet,They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet.XXXI.Some stronger ones contrived, (by eating leather,Their weaker friends, and one thing or another,)The winter months of scarcity to weather;Among these was the late saint's younger brother,Who, in the spring, collecting them together,Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy potherHad wrought in their behalf, and that the placeOf Saint should be continued to his race.XXXII.Accordingly 'twas settled on the spotThat Allah favored that peculiar breed;Beside, as all were satisfied, 'twould notBe quite respectable to have the needOf public spiritual food forgot;And so the tribe, with proper forms decreedThat he, and, failing him, his next of kin,Forever for the people's good should spin.
Transcriber's Notes:Punctuation has been standardized. Footnotes are moved to the end of the section or poem in which they occur.The remaining changes and transliterations of Greek are indicated by dotted lines under the text. Scroll the mouse over the word and the changed or transliterated text willappear.
Punctuation has been standardized. Footnotes are moved to the end of the section or poem in which they occur.
The remaining changes and transliterations of Greek are indicated by dotted lines under the text. Scroll the mouse over the word and the changed or transliterated text willappear.