The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and ObservationNordhoff, Charles
History
The Communistic Societies of the United States: From Personal Visit and Observation
Nordhoff, Charles
Collective settlements -- United States
"Men of sound reason use their pipes
For colics, pains, and windy gripes;
And smoking's useful, we will own,
To give the nerves and fluids tone;
But poor old Slug has to confess
He uses it to great excess,
And will indulge his appetite
Beyond his reason and his light.
If others round him do abstain,
It keeps him all the time in pain;
And if a sentence should be spoke
Against his much-beloved smoke,
Tho' it be in the way of joke,
He thinks his union's almost broke.
In all such things he's at a loss,
Because he thinks not of the cross,
But yields himself a willing slave
To what his meaner passions crave.
"This stupid soul in all his drift
Is still behind the proper gift--
With other souls he don't unite,
Nor is he zealous to do right.
Among Believers he's a drug,
And ev'ry elder hates a Slug.
"When long forbearance is the theme,
A warm believer he would seem--
For diff'rent tastes give gen'rous scope,
And he is full of faith and hope;
But talk about some good church rule,
And his high zeal you'll quickly cool.
Indulge him, then, in what is wrong,
And Slug will try to move along;
Nor will he his own state mistrust,
Until he gets so full of lust
His cross he will no longer tug,
Then to the world goes poor old Slug."
"Hoggish nature" comes in for a share of denunciation next in these
lines:
"In the increasing work of the gospel we find,
The old hoggish nature we will have to bind--
To starve the old glutton, and leave him to shift,
Till in union with heaven we eat in a gift.
"What Father will teach me, I'll truly obey;
I'll keep Mother's counsel, and not go astray;
Then plagues and distempers they will have to cease,
In all that live up to the gospel's increase.
"The glutton's a seat in which evil can work,
And in hoggish nature diseases will lurk:
By faith and good works we can all overcome,
And starve the old glutton until he is done.
"But while he continues to guzzle and eat,
All kinds of distempers will still find a seat--
The plagues of old Egypt--the scab and the bile,
At which wicked spirits and devils will smile.
"Now some can despise the good porridge and soup,
And by the old glutton they surely are dup'd--
To eat seven times in a day! What a mess!
I hate the old glutton for his hoggishness.
"No wonder that plagues and distempers abound,
While there is a glutton in camp to be found,
To spurn at the counsel kind Heaven did give--
And guzzle up all, and have nothing to save.
"When glutton goes in and sits down with the rest,
His hoggish old nature it grabs for the best--
The cake and the custard, the crull and the pie--
He cares not for others, but takes care of I.
"His stomach is weak, being gorg'd on the best,
He has had sev'ral pieces secret from the rest;
He'll fold up his arms, at the rest he will look,
Because they do eat the good porridge and soup.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account