I

NATURAL THEOLOGY

PRIMITIVE

ATE my fill of a whale that died

And stranded after a month at sea.
There is a pain in my inside.

Why have the Gods afflicted me?
Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith!
Wow! I am sick till I cannot see!

What is the sense of Religion and Faith?
Look how the Gods have afflicted me!

PAGAN

How can the skin of rat or mouse hold
Anything more than a harmless flea?
The burning plague has taken my household.
Why have my Gods afflicted me?

All my kith and kin are deceased,

Though they were as good as good could be.

I will out and batter the family priest,
Because my Gods have afflicted me.

NATURAL THEOLOGY

MEDIEVAL

My privy and well drain into each other
After the custom of Christendie.
Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?

The Saints are helpless for all I offer—
So are the clergy I used to fee.
Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer,
Because the Lord has afflicted me.

MATERIAL

I run eight hundred hens to the acre.
They die by dozens mysteriously.

I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker.
Why has the Lord afflicted me?
What a return for all my endeavour-

Not to mention the L. S. D.!

I am an atheist now and for ever,
Because this God has afflicted me!

PROGRESSIVE

Money spent on an Army or Fleet

Is homicidal lunacy.

My son has been killed in the Mons retreat.
Why is the Lord afflicting me?

Why are murder, pillage and arson

And rape allowed by the Deity?

I will write to the Times, deriding our parson,
Because my God has afflicted me.

CHORUS

We had a kettle: we let it leak:
Our not repairing it made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week.
The bottom is out of the Universe!

CONCLUSION

This was none of the good Lord's pleasure,
For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free;
But what comes after is measure for measure,
And not a God that afflicteth thee.
As was the sowing so the reaping

Is now and evermore shall be.
Thou art delivered to thy own keeping.
Only Thyself hath afflicted thee!

T

A SONG AT COCK-CROW

'Ille autem iterum negavit.'

HE first time that Peter deniéd his Lord

He shrank from the cudgel, the scourge and the

cord,

But followed far off to see what they would do,
Till the cock crew-till the cock crew-

After Gethsemane, till the cock crew!

The first time that Peter deniéd his Lord
'Twas only a maid in the palace who heard,
As he sat by the fire and warmed himself through.
Then the cock crew! Then the cock crew!

('Thou also art one of them.') Then the cock crew!

The first time that Peter deniéd his Lord

He had neither the Throne, nor the Keys nor the Sword

A poor silly fisherman, what could he do

When the cock crew-when the cock crew

But weep for his wickedness when the cock crew?

The next time that Peter deniéd his Lord

He was Fisher of Men, as foretold by the Word,

With the Crown on his brow and the Cross on his shoe, When the cock crew-when the cock crew

In Flanders and Picardy when the cock crew.

The next time that Peter deniéd his Lord

'Twas Mary the Mother in Heaven Who heard, And She grieved for the maidens and wives that they slew

When the cock crew-when the cock crew

At Tirmonde and Aerschott when the cock crew.

The next time that Peter deniéd his Lord

The Babe in the Manger awakened and stirred,

And He stretched out His arms for the playmates He

knew

When the cock crew-when the cock crew

But the waters had covered them when the cock crew.

The next time that Peter deniéd his Lord
'Twas Earth in her agony waited his word,
But he sat by the fire and naught would he do,
Though the cock crew-though the cock crew-
Over all Christendom, though the cock crew.

The last time that Peter deniéd his Lord,

The Father took from him the Keys and the Sword, And the Mother and Babe brake his Kingdom in two, When the cock crew-when the cock crew

(Because of his wickedness) when the cock crew!