As Puritans they prominently wax, And none more kindly gives and takes hard knocks Strong psalmic chanting, like to nasal cocks, They join to thunderings of their hearty thwacks. But naughtiness, with hoggery, not lacks When Peace another door in them unlocks, Where conscience shows the eyeing of an ox Grown dully apprehensive of an Axe. Graceless they are when gone to frivolousness, Fearing the God they flout, the God they glut. They need their pious exercises less Than schooling in the Pleasures: fair belief That these are devilish only to their thief, Charged with an Axe nigh on the occiput. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...EPITAPH ON AN ARMY OF MERCENARIES by ALFRED EDWARD HOUSMAN ODES I, 5 by QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 97 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI THRENODY by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE HERO OF VIMY; AN INCIDENT OF THE GREAT WAR by BRENT DOW ALLINSON MARIE MIGNOT by RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM THE LAST MAN: EXTREME ACCLIVITY by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES |