 | Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] |  |
99
GERMAN AND FRENCH GOSPELS.
How do these eloquent lecturers of France,And more uncouth expositors of lame
Teutonic Saviours, on our creeds advance,
And push, in crowds, for Messianic fame!
Some in ‘great swaths’ of learning and untruth
Utter themselves, and vent, in weary tomes,
Their cruel day-dreams, without pause or ruth,
Staunch to a worse apostacy than Rome's;
Others, in tenderer tones, our hopes decry,
And blight all careless hearts with moral death,
And, with sweet voices, summon us to die;
But, all alike, reduce our grand old faith,
Our full-orb'd creeds, to merest nuclei,
With atmospheres of philosophic breath!
| Sonnets by the Rev. Charles Turner [i.e. Charles Tennyson] | |