Musa Burschicosa :: :: University of Virginia Library

I've stood my trials, I've left the school,
I'm capped with a learned B.D.,
Of Latin and Greek and Hebrew I'm full,
Old Wisdom dwelleth with me;
And now, if you'll list to my rhymes,
I'll flap my young pinions
In my new dominions,
And vent what I may
In a delicate way;
For stone walls have ears sometimes.

I'm a Protestant good; I hate the Pope,
In every shape and degree,
The Popish Pope, and the Presbyter Pope,
And all the Popes that be;
For this above all things I prize,
To have free admission,
With no man's permission,

Both early and late,
Through the gracious gate,
To the prayer-hearing God in the skies.

I hate the Pope; and in God's own book
I read the message of grace,
And I claim a freeman's right to look
The Master I serve in the face;
And I speak this out plainly, because
If you swear to a lesson
From human confession,
You're a muff and a spoon,
And a blinking poltroon,
And a traitor to Protestant laws.

Some preach a god so savage and grim,
When he snorts in his terrible wrath,
They crouch and cower and fawn to him,
And lick the dust in his path;
But against this I flatly rebel,
And boldly deny it,
That such a stern fiat
Was forged above
By the Father of love,
To swamp half His children in hell.

Some say that through their chosen veins
There creeps a magical virtue,
To charm away all sorrows and pains
That issue of Adam is heir to;
But this is not gospel at all;
Not narrowly creeping,
But liberal sweeping,
On sinful race
Came God's free grace,
By the preaching of Peter and Paul.

Some preach a religion of dainty air,
They come with candle and bell,
And cassock and cope and surplice fair,
And might of miraculous spell;
But this I declare to you all,
That by dresses and laces,
And bows and grimaces,
A man should strive
His soul to shrive,
Stands not in the gospel of Paul.

And now I think you will understand,
Of crotchet, and whim, and conceit,
We can boast enough in this Christian land,
To turn into bitter our sweet;

Then take my advice sans offence;
To make harmless the potion,
Of each darling notion,
Just temper the draught,
Before it is quaffed,
With a few drops of plain common sense!

You've heard my song; if you think it long,
I'll give you the gist in a line,
'Tis the letter that kills, in sermon or song,
The Spirit alone is divine;
God's grace comes to me and to you,
Not by counting of beads well,
Or conning of creeds well,
But by resolute will
To struggle with ill,
And by faith that can dare and can do!