Since Reverend Doctors Now Declare That Clerks And People Must Prepare To Doubt If Adam Ever Were; To Hold The Flood A Local Scare; To Argue, Though The Stolid Stare, That Everything Had Happened Ere The Prophets To Its Happening Sware; That David Was No Giant-Slayer, Nor One To Call A God-Obeyer In Certain Details We Could Spare, But Rather Was A Debonair Shrewd Bandit, Skilled As Banjo-Player: That Solomon Sang The Fleshly Fair, And Gave The Church No Thought Whate'Er; That Esther With Her Royal Wear, And Mordecai, The Son Of Jair, And Joshua'S Triumphs, Job'S Despair, And Balaam'S Ass'S Bitter Blare; Nebuchadnezzar'S Furnace-Flare, And Daniel And The Den Affair, And Other Stories Rich And Rare, Were Writ To Make Old Doctrine Wear Something Of A Romantic Air: That The Nain Widow'S Only Heir, And Lazarus With Cadaverous Glare (As Done In Oils By Piombo'S Care) Did Not Return From Sheol'S Lair: That Jael Set A Fiendish Snare, That Pontius Pilate Acted Square, That Never A Sword Cut Malchus' Ear And (But For Shame I Must Forbear) That - - Did Not Reappear! . . . - Since Thus They Hint, Nor Turn A Hair, All Churchgoing Will I Forswear, And Sit On Sundays In My Chair, And Read That Moderate Man Voltaire.