Its focus resting where his soul should be, ・・
Disclosing, 'mongst his lesser attributes;"
A Pavonine,* noble Ostentation,"
That contemns Reason, as a Lunatic,
And promises eternal vassalage,"
To affable Licentiousness and me! »
"That Reason, with her long experience
Of Man's suspicion of her sanity,
Should still persist, in importuning him,
Against the protest of his Appetites,
Which are, proverbially obstinate,-
To leave those easy avenues to Bliss,
That stark-blind Sensuality can thread,
Unerringly, as with old Argus' eyes,
Ere Juno lent them to the Peacock's tail;
Where they, appropriately, represent
The Moral Vision of my votaries,
Seems to prove her really insane!
"In spite of her sepulchral threatenings, And yet, without an effort of mine own, I have entirely, superseded her,
In the best affections of human-kind.
Meanwhile, by turns, she mopes, in sullen grief,
Presently, tornado-like, she blusters,
Nor foams, less madly, than a Cataract,
At Man's supreme submissiveness to me!
"But, let her rail, exhort and importune,
Until hoarseness shall have made her voicelessy
And disappointment, grief and weariness,
Shall have shrunk her Shrewship to a Mummy,,
My friends will heed her just about as well,
As modern children do their guardians!
Dear little gentlefolk! how smart they are;
Dame Reason may assail them, if she dare!
And, if she dont get trained, I will admit,
That she may humanize the Monkeys yet!”
Bearing date 1636; and signed Fouetteur l'Homines, or Whipper of Mankind.
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