AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE.

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 sublime
It 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 brother
Used for himself, Damnonian for the other.

II.

One half the time of each was spent in praying For blessings on his own unworthy head,

The other half in fearfully portraying

Where certain folks would go when they were dead
This system of exchanges-there's no saying

To what more solid barter 'twould have led,
But that a river, vext with boils and swellings
At rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings.

III.

So they two played at wordy battledore

And kept a curse forever in the air,

Flying this way or that from shore to shore; No other labour did this holy pair,

Clothed and supported from the lavish store Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care; They toiled not neither did they spin; their bias Was 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-rammed
With cartridge theologic (so to say),

Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed
His hovel's door behind him in a way

That to his foe said plainly-you'll be damned;
And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong
The 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 his
Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed an
Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fist
With nails six inches long, yet lifted not

His eyes

from off his navel's mystic knot.

VI.

"Who whirls not round six thousand times an hour Will go," screamed Ahmed, "to the evil place; May he eat dirt, and may the dog and Giaour Defile the graves of him and all his race;

Allah loves faithful souls and gives them power

To spin till they are purple in the face;

Some folks get you know what, but he that pure is Earns 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 beast
Adorned with claws like mine was ever seen;
The suns and stars are Brahma's thoughts divine
Even 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 whack
On those lank ribs would rid thee of that Dream!
Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac

To my soul's stomach; could'st thou grasp the scheme
Of true redemption, thou would'st know that Deity
Whirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity.

IX.

"And this it is which keeps our earth here going With all the stars.”—“O, vile! but there's a place Prepared for such; to think of Brahma throwing Worlds like a juggler's balls up into Space!

Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowing Is e'er allowed that silence to efface

Which 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 stream A youth whose face like an incarnate pæan Glowed, 'twas so full of grandeur and of gleam;

"If there be gods, then, doubtless this must be onc,” Thought both at once, and then began to scream,

Surely, whate'er immortals know, thou knowest,

Decide between us twain before thou goest!"

ΧΙ.

The youth was drifting in a slim canoe
Most like a huge white waterlily's petal,
But neither of our theologians knew

Whereof 'twas made; whether of heavenly metal
Unknown, or of a vast pearl split in two
And hollowed, was a point they could not settle;
'Twas good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruit,
In after years of many a tart dispute.