University of Virginia Library

The quaint, well populated country store!
A hospitable, mirth-productive shore,
Where masculine barks take refuge from distress,
In the port of an evening's cheerfulness.
The rusty stove, with wood-fed heat endowed,
Shoots hot invisible arrows at the crowd,
To which the chewing population nigh
Send back a prompt and vigorous reply,
And find time for side-battles of retort,
In various moralled stories, long and short:
From one that's smart and good enough to print,
To one that has a hundred hell-seeds in 't.
Here laws are put on trial by debate,
Here solved conundrums, both of Church and State;
Here is contested, with more voice than brain,
Full many a hot political campaign;
The half surmised shortcomings of the church
Are opened to some sinner's anxious search;
And criticisms the minister gets here,
From men who have not heard him once a year.
Or maybe some inside the sacred fold
No longer their experiences can hold
Within the flock, who 've harked to them so oft,
Invariably referring them aloft,
That, tired of this monotony, they yearn
A little godless sympathy to earn.
And maybe it is one of these, who now,
With elevated feet and earnest brow,
And face where sentiment flits to and fro,
Tells sorrows he has felt not long ago: