  ("Life is a very awful thing! You young fellows are too busy being jolly to realize the folly of your lives." —A Charterhouse Sermon) In Chapel often when I bawl The hymns, to show I'm musical, With bright eye and cheery voice Bidding Christian folk rejoice, Shame be it said, I've not a thought Of the One Being whom I ought To worship: with unwitting roar Other godheads I adore. I celebrate the Gods of Mirth And Love and Youth and Springing Earth, Bacchus, beautiful, divine, Gulping down his heady wine, Dear Pan piping in his hollow, Fiery-headed King Apollo And rugged Atlas all aloof Holding up the purple roof. I have often felt and sung, "It's a good thing to be young: Though the preacher says it's folly, Is it foolish to be jolly?" I have often prayed in fear, "Let me never grow austere; Let me never think, I pray, Too much about Judgment Day; Never, never feel in Spring, 'Life's a very awful thing!'" Then I realize and start And curse my arrogant young heart, Bind it over to confess Its horrible ungodliness, Set myself penances, and sigh That I was born in sin, and try To find the whole world vanity. |
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