Ring, ting; to bow before the strong, There is a rapture too in this; Work for thy master, work, thou slave— He is not merciful, but brave. Be’t joy to serve, who free and proud Scorns thee and all the ignoble crowd; Take that, ’tis all thou art allowed, Except the snaky hope that they May sometime serve who rule to-day. When, by hell-demons, shan’t they pay? O wickedness, O shame and grief, And heavy load, and no relief! O God, O God! and which is worst, To be the curser or the curst, The victim or the murderer? Dong. Dong, there is no God; dong. Ring ding, ring ding, tara, tara, Away, and hush that preaching—fagh! Ye vulgar dreamers about peace, Who offer noblest hearts, to heal The tenderest hurts honour can feel, Paid magistrates and the police! O peddling merchant-justice, go, Exacter rules than yours we know; Resentment’s rule, and that high law Of whoso best the sword can draw. Ah well, and yet—dong, dong, dong. Go on, my friends, as now you do; Lawyers are villains, soldiers too; And nothing’s new and nothing’s true. Dong, there is no God; dong. I had a dream, from eve to light A bell went sounding all the night. Gay mirth, black woe, thin joys, huge pain: I tried to stop it, but in vain. It ran right on, and never broke; Only when day began to stream Through the white curtains to my bed, And like an angel at my head Light stood and touched me—I awoke, And looked, and said, ‘It is a dream.’ _Sp._ Ah! not so bad. You’ve read, I see, Your Béranger, and thought of me. But really you owe some apology For harping thus upon theology. I’m not a judge, I own; in short, Religion may not be my forte. The Church of England I belong to, And think Dissenters not far wrong too; They’re vulgar dogs; but for his _creed_ I hold that no man will be d——d. But come and listen in your turn, And you shall hear and mark and learn. ‘There is no God,’ the wicked saith, ‘And truly it’s a blessing, For what He might have done with us It’s better only guessing.’ ‘There is no God,’ a youngster thinks, ‘Or really, if there may be, He surely didn’t mean a man Always to be a baby.’ ‘There is no God, or if there is,’ The tradesman thinks, ‘’twere funny If He should take it ill in me To make a little money.’ ‘Whether there be,’ the rich man says, ‘It matters very little, For I and mine, thank somebody, Are not in want of victual.’ Some others, also, to themselves, Who scarce so much as doubt it, Think there is none, when they are well, And do not think about it. But country folks who live beneath The shadow of the steeple; The parson and the parson’s wife, And mostly married people; Youths green and happy in first love, So thankful for illusion; And men caught out in what the world Calls guilt, in first confusion;