| |
| THE MAN in righteousness arrayed, | |
| A pure and blameless liver, | |
| Needs not the keen Toledo blade, | |
| Nor venom-freighted quiver. | |
| What though he wind his toilsome way | 5 |
| O’er regions wild and weary— | |
| Through Zara’s burning desert stray, | |
| Or Asia’s jungles dreary: | |
| |
| What though he plough the billowy deep | |
| By lunar light, or solar, | 10 |
| Meet the resistless Simoon’s sweep, | |
| Or iceberg circumpolar! | |
| In bog or quagmire deep and dank | |
| His foot shall never settle; | |
| He mounts the summit of Mont Blanc, | 15 |
| Or Popocatapetl. | |
| |
| On Chimborazo’s breathless height | |
| He treads o’er burning lava; | |
| Or snuffs the Bohan Upas blight, | |
| The deathful plant of Java. | 20 |
| Through every peril he shall pass, | |
| By Virtue’s shield protected; | |
| And still by Truth’s unerring glass | |
| His path shall be directed. | |
| |
| Else wherefore was it, Thursday last, | 25 |
| While strolling down the valley, | |
| Defenceless, musing as I passed | |
| A canzonet to Sally, | |
| A wolf, with mouth-protruding snout, | |
| Forth from the thicket bounded— | 30 |
| I clapped my hands and raised a shout— | |
| He heard—and fled—confounded. | |
| |
| Tangier nor Tunis never bred | |
| An animal more crabbed; | |
| Nor Fez, dry-nurse of lions, fed | 35 |
| A monster half so rabid; | |
| Nor Ararat so fierce a beast | |
| Has seen since days of Noah; | |
| Nor stronger, eager for a feast, | |
| The fell constrictor boa. | 40 |
| |
| Oh! place me where the solar beam | |
| Has scorched all verdure vernal; | |
| Or on the polar verge extreme, | |
| Blocked up with ice eternal— | |
| Still shall my voice’s tender lays | 45 |
| Of love remain unbroken; | |
| And still my charming Sally praise, | |
| Sweet smiling and sweet spoken. | |
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