ODE.
[In his wooden palace jumping]
Recitative.
In his wooden palace jumping,
Tearing, sweating, bawling, thumping,
“Repent, repent, repent,”
The mighty Whitefield cries,
Oblique light'ning in his eyes,
“Or die and be damn'd!” all around
The long-eared rabble grunt in dismal sound,
“Repent, repent, repent,”
Each concave mouth replies.
The comet of gospel, the lanthorn of light,
Is rising and shining
Like candles at night.
He shakes his ears,
He jumps, he stares;
Hark, he's whining!
The short-hand saints prepare to write,
And high they mount their ears.
Air.
“Now the devil take ye all,
Saints or no saints, all in a lump;
Here must I labour and bawl,
And thump, and thump, and thump;
And never a souse to be got.
Unless—I swear by jingo,
A greater profit's made,
I'll forswear my trade,
My gown and market-lingo,
And leave ye all to pot.”
Recitative.
Now he raves like brindled cat,
Now 'tis thunder,
Rowling,
Growling,
Rumbling,
Grumbling,
Noise and nonsense, jest and blunder.
Now he chats of this and that,
No more the soul-jobber,
No more the sly robber,
He's now an old woman who talks to her cat.
Again he starts, he beats his breast,
He rolls his eyes, erects his crest;
Hark! hark! the sound begins,
'Tis a bargain and sale for remission of sins.
Air.
“Say, beloved congregation,
In the hour of tribulation,
Did the power of man affray me?
Say, ye wives, and say, ye daughters,
Ha'n't I staunched your running waters?
I have laboured—pay me—pay me!
I have given absolution,
Don't withhold your contribution;
Men and angels should obey me—
Give but freely, you've remission
For all sins without condition;
You're my debtors, pay me, pay me!”
Recitative.
Again he's lost, again he chatters
Of lace and bobbin and such matters.
A thickening vapour swells—
Of Adam's fall he tells;
Dark as twice ten thousand hells
Is the gibberish which he spatters.
Now a most dismal elegy he sings,
Groans, doleful groans are heard about;
The Issacharian rout
Swell the sharp howl, and loud the sorrow rings.
He sung a modern buck, whose end
Was blinded prejudice and zeal;
In life, to every vice a friend,
Unfixed as fortune on her wheel.
He lived a buck, he died a fool,
So let him to oblivion fall,
Who thought a wretched body all,
Untaught in nature's or the passion's school.
Now he takes another theme,
Thus he tells his waking dream.
Air.
“After fasting and praying and grunting and weeping,
My guardian angel beheld me fast sleeping;
And instantly capering into my brain,
Relieved me from prison of bodily chain.
The soul can be every thing as you all know,
And mine was transformed to the shape of a crow.”
(The preacher or metre has surely mistook,
For all must confess that a parson's a rook.)
“Having wings, as I think I informed ye before,
I shot through a cavern and knocked at hell's door.
Out comes Mr. Porter Devil,
And, I'll assure ye, very civil.
“Dear sir,” quoth he, “pray step within,
The company is drinking tea;
We have a stranger just come in,
A brother from the triple tree.”
Well, in I walked, and what d'ye think?
Instead of sulphur, fire, and stink,
'Twas like a masquerade,
All grandeur, all parade.
Here stood an amphitheatre,
There stood the small Haymarket-house,
With devil-actors very clever,
Who without blacking did Othello.
And truly, a huge horned fellow
Told me, he hoped I would endeavour
To learn a part, and get a souse;
For pleasure was the business there.
A lawyer asked me for a fee,
To plead my right to drinking tea:
I begged his pardon; to my thinking,
I'd rather have a cheering cup,
For tea was but insipid drinking,
And brandy raised the spirits up.
So having seen each place in hell,
I straight awoke, and found all well.”
Recitative.
Now again his cornet's sounding,
Sense and harmony confounding,
Reason tortured, scripture twisted,
Into every form of fancy;
Forms which never yet existed,
And but his óblique optics cán see.
He swears,
He tears,
With sputtered nonsense now he breaks the ears;
At last the sermon and the paper ends;
He whines, and hopes his well-beloved friends
Will contribute their sons
To pay the arrears for building a house;
With spiritual doctors, and doctors for poxes,
Who all must be satisfied out of the boxes.
Hark! hark!—his cry resounds,
“Fire and thunder, blood and wounds,
Contribute, contribute,
And pay me my tribute,
Or the devil, I swear,
hall hunt ye as sportsmen would hunt a poor hare.
Whoever gives, unto the Lord he lends.”
The saint is melted, pays his fee, and wends;
And here the tedious length'ning Journal ends.
Ended Sat. evening, 30th Sept. 1769.
