Ballade of Belief
Says Herbert: Pray, list to my notion,
All ye who the truth would invite;
Be Agnostics, and spurn the emotion
That ghosts and the gospels excite.
In th’ Unknown do I find all delight,
And in Infinite Energy see
All casual cravings unite—
And that’s the religion for me.
Says Frederic: Pray list to my notion,
Away with Impersonal Might,
To Humanity tender promotion,
And worship the idëal wight.
Though from stock that is Simian hight
He may trace out a pure pedigree,
Yet to Man will I anthems recite—
And that’s the religion for me.
Says Wilfrid: Pray, list to my notion,
On the hip I will infidels smite;
’Tis only through Christian devotion
That virtues with vices can fight.
Whate’er may Theology write,
Whatever the Church may decree,
My soul shall acknowledge as right—
And that’s the religion for me.
Envoi.
(Voice of the bewildered one.)
O faith full of riddle and rite,
O philosophies deep as the sea,
In this posse of problems polite,
Prithee, where’s the religion for me?
Cotsford Dick.