 | English Roses |  |
254
BROTHER BATHOS.
Brother Bathos—
This will tell you how he figured, how he fared
Up and down the golden city;
How he wept aloud for sin, and sweetly cared
For our modern Babylon;
With his pathos,
With his mathos
And an unctuous power of pity—
Oozing his Eirenicon.
He believed in talk and tears,
In the fission
Or the shaking
And awaking
Of the hearts that passion sears,
In the glory of a well-conducted mission.
Here he truly romped and revelled
In a proper sort of way
Over hostile doubts and fears,
With discourses nicely “devilled”
And appeals to mortal clay.
Ah, his voice was like a rousing funeral hymn's tone,
When he wrestled with the lusts
In the agitated busts
Of his audient virginity
And attentive femininity—
Or laid on the fire and brimstone.
This will tell you how he figured, how he fared
Up and down the golden city;
How he wept aloud for sin, and sweetly cared
For our modern Babylon;
With his pathos,
With his mathos
And an unctuous power of pity—
Oozing his Eirenicon.
He believed in talk and tears,
In the fission
Or the shaking
And awaking
Of the hearts that passion sears,
In the glory of a well-conducted mission.
Here he truly romped and revelled
In a proper sort of way
Over hostile doubts and fears,
With discourses nicely “devilled”
And appeals to mortal clay.
Ah, his voice was like a rousing funeral hymn's tone,
When he wrestled with the lusts
In the agitated busts
Of his audient virginity
And attentive femininity—
Or laid on the fire and brimstone.
Brother Bathos—
Thus they called him, friends and enemies as well,
From his love of fraternising
With the worshippers who followed his church bell,
In our fallen Babylon;
With his pathos,
With his mathos
In insidious modes surprising,
Out of his great Organon.
He rejoiced in every tool,
From the flotage
Of the ages
And the sages
Or the saints of any school,
And he voyaged on a sea of anecdotage.
Artless frumps and ancient fogeys
Bowed before him, as the reed
Swaying in a wind-swept pool,
At the venerable Bogeys
Of his dew-and-thunder creed.
With convincing mop he stirred the suds and sediment
Down in the old Adam rock
'Neath some unregenerate frock,
Like another sorcerous Elymas,
To an abject state of jelly-mass—
Till he broke through all impediment.
Thus they called him, friends and enemies as well,
From his love of fraternising
With the worshippers who followed his church bell,
In our fallen Babylon;
With his pathos,
With his mathos
In insidious modes surprising,
Out of his great Organon.
255
From the flotage
Of the ages
And the sages
Or the saints of any school,
And he voyaged on a sea of anecdotage.
Artless frumps and ancient fogeys
Bowed before him, as the reed
Swaying in a wind-swept pool,
At the venerable Bogeys
Of his dew-and-thunder creed.
With convincing mop he stirred the suds and sediment
Down in the old Adam rock
'Neath some unregenerate frock,
Like another sorcerous Elymas,
To an abject state of jelly-mass—
Till he broke through all impediment.
Brother Bathos
Was a prophet of a certain sort and size,
And uncertain years and temper;
Nor had spidery spinster yet achieved the prize,
Still on sale in Babylon
With his pathos,
With his mathos
And those serious views ut semper—
Of the Pope and Parthenon.
Sometimes he would almost burst
With his visions,
And the story
Of the glory
Gained in sloughing flesh accurst—
Orthodoxy hung upon his sound decisions.
O his edicts shook the cloister
And the licence of the camp,
As no other preacher durst,
And made eyes of angels moister
With the sternness of their stamp.
He was nothing if not absolutely clerical,
In his garments and the grace
Of the fat and foolish space,
Occupied by his rotundity
And its bottomless profundity
Trading upon qualms hysterical.
Was a prophet of a certain sort and size,
And uncertain years and temper;
Nor had spidery spinster yet achieved the prize,
Still on sale in Babylon
With his pathos,
With his mathos
And those serious views ut semper—
Of the Pope and Parthenon.
Sometimes he would almost burst
With his visions,
And the story
Of the glory
Gained in sloughing flesh accurst—
Orthodoxy hung upon his sound decisions.
O his edicts shook the cloister
And the licence of the camp,
As no other preacher durst,
And made eyes of angels moister
With the sternness of their stamp.
He was nothing if not absolutely clerical,
256
Of the fat and foolish space,
Occupied by his rotundity
And its bottomless profundity
Trading upon qualms hysterical.
Brother Bathos
Had a talent for unfolding Scripture truth,
And most tenderly expounded
Solemn mysteries to yearning eyes and youth,
Mid the snares of Babylon;
With a pathos,
With a mathos
Which conclusively confounded
All the errors built upon.
He was with his holy guiles
Great at unction,
And in cassock
Or on hassock
Manufactured tears and smiles,
Which he shed on all without the least compunction.
But he doted on sweet sinners
Of the devious foot and glance,
And ensnared them with soft wiles,
Cups of tea and dainty dinners
Or a casual country dance.
But they proved him very nice and more than lenient
In the penance on them laid,
On the matron or the maid;
Help they found, who chose to titillate
Ready ears, and (should they sit till late)
Arms for fainting forms convenient.
Had a talent for unfolding Scripture truth,
And most tenderly expounded
Solemn mysteries to yearning eyes and youth,
Mid the snares of Babylon;
With a pathos,
With a mathos
Which conclusively confounded
All the errors built upon.
He was with his holy guiles
Great at unction,
And in cassock
Or on hassock
Manufactured tears and smiles,
Which he shed on all without the least compunction.
But he doted on sweet sinners
Of the devious foot and glance,
And ensnared them with soft wiles,
Cups of tea and dainty dinners
Or a casual country dance.
But they proved him very nice and more than lenient
In the penance on them laid,
On the matron or the maid;
Help they found, who chose to titillate
Ready ears, and (should they sit till late)
Arms for fainting forms convenient.
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