“I’m in the business myself,” said he,
    “And you’ve mistook my expression;
  For I uses the technical terms, you see,
    Employed in my perfession.”

  That old undertaker has joined the throng
    On the other side of the River,
  But I’m still unhappy to think I’m a “long,”
   And a tape-line makes me shiver.

A REPLY TO A LETTER.

  O nonsense, parson—­tell me not they thrive
    And jubilate who follow your dictation. 
  The good are the unhappiest lot alive—­
    I know they are from careful observation. 
    If freedom from the terrors of damnation
  Lengthens the visage like a telescope,
  And lacrymation is a sign of hope,
    Then I’ll continue, in my dreadful plight,
  To tread the dusky paths of sin, and grope
    Contentedly without your lantern’s light;
    And though in many a bog beslubbered quite,
  Refuse to flay me with ecclesiastic soap.

  You say ’tis a sad world, seeing I’m condemned,
    With many a million others of my kidney. 
  Each continent’s Hammed, Japheted and Shemmed
    With sinners—­worldlings like Sir Philip Sidney
  And scoffers like Voltaire, who thought it bliss
  To simulate respect for Genesis—­
    Who bent the mental knee as if in prayer,
    But mocked at Moses underneath his hair,
  And like an angry gander bowed his head to hiss.

  Seeing such as these, who die without contrition,
  Must go to—­beg your pardon, sir—­perdition,
    The sons of light, you tell me, can’t be gay,
  But count it sin of the sort called omission
    The groan to smother or the tear to stay
    Or fail to—­what is that they live by?—­pray. 
  So down they flop, and the whole serious race is
  Put by divine compassion on a praying basis.

  Well, if you take it so to heart, while yet
    Our own hearts are so light with nature’s leaven,
  You’ll weep indeed when we in Hades sweat,
    And you look down upon us out of Heaven. 
  In fancy, lo!  I see your wailing shades
  Thronging the crystal battlements.  Cascades
  Of tears spring singing from each golden spout,
    Run roaring from the verge with hoarser sound,
    Dash downward through the glimmering profound,
  Quench the tormenting flame and put the Devil out!

  Presumptuous ass! to you no power belongs
  To pitchfork me to Heaven upon the prongs
    Of a bad pen, whose disobedient sputter,
  With less of ink than incoherence fraught
    Befits the folly that it tries to utter. 
    Brains, I observe, as well as tongues, can stutter: 
  You suffer from impediment of thought.

  When next you “point the way to Heaven,” take care: 
  Your fingers all being thumbs, point, Heaven knows where! 
  Farewell, poor dunce! your letter though I blame,
  Bears witness how my anger I can tame: 
  I’ve called you everything except your hateful name!