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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
