Worthless are all such pilgrimages--very! If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive The humans heats and rancor to revive That at the Sepulcher they ought to bury. A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on, To see a Christian creature graze at Sion, Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full, Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke, At crippled Papistry to butt and poke, Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull Haunts an old woman in a scarlet cloak. Why leave a serious, moral, pious home, Scotland, renewned for sanctity of old, Far distant Catholics to rate and scold For--doing as the Romans do at Rome? With such a bristling spirit wherefore quit The Land of Cakes for any land of wafers, About the graceless images to flit, And buzz and chafe importunate as chafers, Longing to carve the carvers to Scotch collops?-- People who hold such absolute opinions Should stay at home in Protestant dominions, Not travel like male Mrs. Trollopes. Gifted with noble tendency to climb, Yet weak at the same time, Faith is a kind of parasitic plant, That grasps the nearest stem with tendril rings; And as the climate and the soil may grant, So is the sort of tree to which it clings. Consider, then, before, like Hurlothrumbo, You aim your club at any creed on earth, That, by the simple accident of birth, YOU might have been High Priest to Mungo Jumbo. For me--through heathen ignorance perchance, Not having knelt in Palestine,--I feel None of that griffinish excess of zeal, Some travelers would blaze with here in France. Dolls I can see in Virgin-like array, Nor for a scuffle with the idols hanker Like crazy Quixotte at the puppet's play, If their "offense be rank," should mine be RANCOR? Mild light, and by degrees, should be the plan To cure the dark and erring mind; But who would rush at a benighted man, And give him, two black eyes for being blind? Suppose the tender but luxuriant hop Around a cankered stem should twine, What Kentish boor would tear away the prop So roughly as to wound, nay, kill the bine? The images, 'tis true, are strangely dressed, With gauds and toys extremely out of season; The carving nothing of the very best, The whole repugnant to the eye of Reason, Shocking to Taste, and to Fine Arts a treason-- Yet ne'er o'erlook in bigotry of sect One truly CATHOLIC, one common form, At which unchecked All Christian hearts may kindle or keep warm.