Its focus resting where his soul should be, ・・ Disclosing, 'mongst his lesser attributes;" A Pavonine,* noble Ostentation,"
That contemns Reason, as a Lunatic, And promises eternal vassalage," To affable Licentiousness and me! »
"That Reason, with her long experience Of Man's suspicion of her sanity, Should still persist, in importuning him, Against the protest of his Appetites, Which are, proverbially obstinate,- To leave those easy avenues to Bliss, That stark-blind Sensuality can thread, Unerringly, as with old Argus' eyes, Ere Juno lent them to the Peacock's tail; Where they, appropriately, represent The Moral Vision of my votaries, Seems to prove her really insane!
"In spite of her sepulchral threatenings, And yet, without an effort of mine own, I have entirely, superseded her,
In the best affections of human-kind.
Meanwhile, by turns, she mopes, in sullen grief, Presently, tornado-like, she blusters,
Nor foams, less madly, than a Cataract, At Man's supreme submissiveness to me!
"But, let her rail, exhort and importune, Until hoarseness shall have made her voicelessy And disappointment, grief and weariness, Shall have shrunk her Shrewship to a Mummy,, My friends will heed her just about as well, As modern children do their guardians! Dear little gentlefolk! how smart they are; Dame Reason may assail them, if she dare! And, if she dont get trained, I will admit, That she may humanize the Monkeys yet!”
Bearing date 1636; and signed Fouetteur l'Homines, or Whipper of Mankind.
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