AN ATTACK ON BARBERCRAFT
[Dedicated to George Cecil Jones]
At last an end of all I hoped and feared!
Muttered the hermit through his elfin beard.
Then what art thou? the evil whisper whirred.
I doubt me soerly if the hermit heard.
To all God’s questions never a word he said,
But simply shook his venerable head.
God sent all plagues; he laughed and heeded not,
Till people certified him insane.
But somehow all his fellow-luntaics
Began to imitate his silly ticks.
And stranger still, their prospects so enlarged
That one by one the patients were discharged.
God asked him by what right he interfered;
He only laughed and into his elfin beard.
When God revealed Himself to mortal prayer
He gave a fatal opening to Voltaire.
Our Hermi had dispensed with Sinai’s thunder,
But on the other hand he made no blunder;
He knew ( no doubt) that any axiom
Would furnish bricks to build some Donkeydom.
But!-all who urged that hermit to confess
Caught the infection of his happiness.
I would it were my fate to dree his weird;
I think that I will grow an elfin beard.
(Mary Elizabeth Coleridge)
More Poetry from Mary Elizabeth Coleridge:
Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems based on Topics: God, Happiness, Good & Evil, Medicine & Medical- Chillingham (Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems)
- He came unto His own, and His own received Him not (Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems)
- The Other Side Of A Mirror (Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems)
- Our Lady (Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems)
- The Witch (Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems)
- Death and the Lady (Mary Elizabeth Coleridge Poems)
Readers Who Like This Poem Also Like:
Based on Topics: God Poems, Happiness Poems, Good & Evil Poems, Medicine & Medical PoemsBased on Keywords: questions, prayer, hoped, fatal, feared, somehow, beard, simply, opening, george, revealed