And was proud that he had made them all astonished by his lore;
Not a continental cared he for the fruits such lessons bore,
So he bowed and left the floor.

Then a Colonel, cold and smiling, with a stately air beguiling,
Who punctuates his paragraphs on Newport's sounding shore,
Said his friend was wise and witty, and yet it seemed a pity
To destroy in this old city the belief it had before
In the ancient superstitions of the days of yore.
This he said, and something more.

Orthodoxy, he lamented, thought the Christian world demented,
Yet still he felt a rev'rence as he read the Bible o'er,
And he thought the modern preacher, though a poor stick for a teacher,
Or a broken reed, like Beecher, ought to have his claims looked o'er,
And the "tyranny of science" was indeed, he felt quite sure,
_Our_ danger more and more.

His remarks our pulses quicken, when a British Lion, stricken
With his wondrous self-importance--he knew everything and more--
Said he _loathed_ such moderation; and he made his declaration
That, in spite of all creation, he found no God to adore;
And his voice was like the ocean as its surges loudly roar;
Only this and nothing more.

* * * * *

But the interest now grew lukewarm, for an ancient Concord book-worm
With authoritative tramping, forward came and took the floor,
And in Orphic mysticisms talked of life and light and prisms,
And the Infinite baptisms on a transcendental shore,
And the concrete metaphysic, till we yawned in anguish sore;
But still he kept the floor.

Then uprose a kindred spirit almost ready to inherit
The rare and radiant Aiden that he begged us to adore;
His smile was beaming brightly, and his soft hair floated whitely
Round a face as fair and sightly as a pious priest's of yore;
And we forgave the arguments worn out years before,
For we loved this saintly bore.

* * * * *

Then a lively little charmer, noted as a dress reformer,
Because that mystic garment, chemiloon, she wore,
Said she had no "views" of Jesus, and therefore would not tease us,
But that she thought 'twould please us to look her figure o'er,
For she wore no bustles _anywhere_, and corsets, she felt sure,