No other labor did this holy pair,

Clothed and supported from the lavish store Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care; They toiled not neither did they spin; their bias Was tow'rd the harder task of being pious.

IV.

Each from his hut rushed six score times a day, Like a great canon of the Church full-rammed With cartridge theologic, (so to say,)

Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed His hovel's door behind him in a way

That to his foe said plainly—you'll be damned; And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong

The two D-D'd each other all day long.

V.

One was a dancing Dervise, a Mohammedan, The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist;

One kept his whatd'yecallit and his Ramadan, Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and laws of his Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed an Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fist With nails six inches long, yet lifted not His eyes from off his navel's mystic knot.

VI.

"Who whirls not round six thousand times an

hour

Will go," screamed Ahmed, " to the evil place; May he eat dirt, and may the dog and Giaour Defile the graves of him and all his race;

Allah loves faithful souls and gives them power

To spin till they are purple in the face;

pure

Some folks get you know what, but he that Earns Paradise and ninety thousand houries."

is

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VII.

Upon the silver mountain, South by East, Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean;

He loves those men whose nails are still increased,

Who all their lives keep ugly, foul and lean;
'Tis of his grace that not a bird or beast
Adorned with claws like mine was ever seen;
The suns and stars are Brahma's thoughts divine
Even as these trees I seem to see are mine."

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VIII.

"Thou seem'st to see, indeed!" roared Ahmed back

Were I but once across this plaguy stream,

With a stout sapling in my hand, one whack On those lank ribs would rid thee of that Dream! Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac

To my soul's stomach; could'st thou grasp the scheme

Of true redemption, thou would'st know that Deity

Whirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity.

IX.

"And this it is which keeps our earth here going With all the stars."-" O, vile! but there's a

place

Prepared for such; to think of Brahma throwing

Worlds like a juggler's balls up into Space!

Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowing Is e'er allowed that silence to efface

Which broods around Brahma, and our earth, 'tis known,

Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this stone."

X.

So they kept up their banning amebean, When suddenly came floating down the stream A youth whose face like an incarnate pæan Glowed, 'twas so full of grandeur and of gleam; "If there be gods, then, doubtless, this must be one,"

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Thought both at once, and then began to scream, Surely, whate'er immortals know, thou knowest, Decide between us twain before thou goest!"

XI.

The youth was drifting in a slim canoe Most like a huge white waterlily's petal, But neither of our theologians knew Whereof 'twas made; whether of heavenly metal Unknown, or of a vast pearl split in two And hollowed, was a point they could not settle; 'Twas good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruit

In after years of many a tart dispute.

XII.

There were no wings upon the stranger's shoulders

And yet he seemed so capable of rising

That, had he soared like thistledown, beholders Had thought the circumstance noways surprising; Enough that he remained, and, when the scolders Hailed him as umpire in their vocal prize-ring, The painter of his boat he lightly threw Around a lotos-stem, and brought her to.

XIII.

The strange youth had a look as if he might Have trod far planets where the atmosphere,

(Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light, Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here; His air was that of a cosmopolite

In the wide universe from sphere to sphere; Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty) An officer of Saturn's guards off duty.

XIV.

Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile, That they might seize his ear; fool! knave! and dunce!

Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencil
In a child's fingers; voluble as duns,

They jabbered like the stones on that immense hill
In the Arabian Nights; until the stranger
Began to think his ear-drums in some danger.

XV.

In general those who nothing have to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it; They turn and vary it in every way, Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, ragouting it; Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay, Then let it slip to be again pursuing it;

They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it, Refute it, flout it, swear to't, prove it, doubt it.

XVI.

Our saints had practised for some thirty years; Their talk, beginning with a single stem,

Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers, Colonies of digression, and, in them,

Germs of yet new migrations; once by the ears, They could convey damnation in a hem, And blow the pinch of premise-priming off Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough.

XVII.

Each had a theory that the human ear
A providential tunnel was, which led
To a huge vacuüm, (and surely here

They showed some knowledge of the general head,)

For cant to be decanted through, a mere Auricular canal or raceway to be fed

All day and night, in sunshine and in shower, From their vast heads of milk-and-water-power.

XVIII.

The present being a peculiar case, Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted, Put his spurred hobby through its very pace, Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted,

Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his

face

Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted, And, with each inch of person and of vesture, Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture.

XIX.

At length, when their breath's end was come about,

And both could, now and then, just gasp "impostor!"

Holding their heads thrust menacingly out, As staggering cocks keep up their fighting pos

ture,

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The stranger smiled and said, Beyond a

doubt

"Tis fortunate, my friends, that you have lost your United parts of speech, or it had been Impossible for me to get between.