Stray Leaves from the Portfolios of Alisander the Seer, Andrew Whaup, and Humphrey Henkeckle ::

Our ‘craft’ is in danger, our calling's at stake,
Our temple's proud walls are beginning to shake;
Our darling Diana, our hope and our all,
Now totters, and, Dagon-like, threatens to fall.
Her shrines—not exactly pure silver and gold—
So tarnished have grown, that we can't get them sold,—
While mankind, confound them, are growing so wise,
That truly they're seeing now with their own eyes.
The blinds, which for ages we made them to wear
The guilt-hardened wretches remorselessly tear,
And throw them behind them with pride and disdain,
Declaring they'll ne'er be blindfolded again.
For they've tasted the fruit of the forbidden tree
Of Knowledge, and hence, like ourselves, they can see;
The good that is for them they've sense now to choose,
While that which is evil the rascals refuse.

O! woe to that day when sound science began,
It has made us to lose all control over man:

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Our oracles, omens, our shrines and our beads,
Our temples, our statues, our forms, and our creeds,
And all our inventions, which ignorance prized,
By the keen eye of reason are now scrutinised;
While lo! her hand-writing appears on the wall,
A dread Mene Tekel, foredooming our fall.

O, it is with a perfect heart-hatred we hate
These new-fangled ‘crafts’ which have sprung up of late,
Invading our rights with mischievous design,
And calling in question our Mission Divine;
Denying our title to Basket and Store,
And styling our lovely Diana a ---.
Nay, worse; there are some grown so wickedly bold,
As our sanctified cloth in derision to hold;
As to laugh at our temple, to mock at our bell,
To throttle our Pluto, and --- out our h---l.
Such wretches as these to perdition must go,
And wail o'er their crimes in the regions below.
Our Fiat is such, and we shall make it good,
By condemning in toto that infidel brood;
For while we're possessed of state temple, and bell,
We'll carry the keys of both heaven and h---l.

Ah! such was the language we held till of late,
But now there awaits us a far other fate;
For lo! half our power in this world is gone,
And that once away, in the next we'll have none.

O dire was the day when we bearded the laws,
And rose in our own, and Diana's great cause;

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For, blindly intent upon riches and power,
We saw not approaching our sad trying hour;
But madly rushed on in the teeth of the law,
Convinced that our craft would create such an awe
In the minds of all men, as would make them afraid
To undo what we did—to unsay what we said.

But fled with the day are our arrogant dreams,
Our Bobadil boastings—our sly hidden schemes;
All futile alike; for, O horror and spite!
That law which we laughed at has risen in its might,
And thundered its threatenings so loud in our ears,
As to fill us with awful forebodings and fears;
For the Town Clerk has told us in language most plain,
What awaits us if e'er we turn rebels again.

O, now that the charm of our calling is broke,
And the dupes whom we led are let loose from our yoke,
What arts can avail us our power to regain?
For the vail of our temple is riven in twain,
Disclosing our craft's inmost secrets to view,
So long kept concealed from the gullable crew;
And showing Diana, all loathsome and bare,
A spectacle sad for vulgarity's stare.

Well, well, since our snug occupation is gone,
What stay have we left us? alas, we have none.
But downward, and downward, we fear we must fall,
Neglected, rejected, and hated by all.

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Yet one consolation for us still remains,
Though reft of our glory, our power and our gains;
Though sorrow and suffering be henceforth our fate,
We'll shout till our latest, ‘Diana is great.’

University of Virginia Library

THE MOURNFUL LAMENTATION OF THE SILVERSMITHS OF EPHESUS,

AFTER HAVING BEEN REBUKED BY THE TOWN CLERK.