Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE QUARREL OF FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY, by HORACE SMITH


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE QUARREL OF FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Once faith, hope, and charity traversed the land
Last Line: "when I choose for my temple an innocent heart."
Alternate Author Name(s): Smith, Horatio
Subject(s): Charity; Faith; God; Hope; Love; Religion; Philanthropy; Belief; Creed; Optimism; Theology


ONCE Faith, Hope, and Charity traversed the land,
In sisterhood's uninterrupted embraces,
Performing their office of love hand in hand,
Of the Christian world the appropriate Graces.

But tiffs since those primitive days have occurred,
That threaten to sever this friendly relation,
As may well be surmised when I state, word for word,
The terms of their latest and worst altercation:

"Sister Charity, prythee allow me to state,"
Cries Faith, in a tone of contemptuous sneering,
"That while you affect to be meek and sedate,
Your conduct is cunning, your tone domineering.

"In the times that are gone, my world-harassing name,
Received some accession of strength every hour;
St. Bartholomew's Massacre hallowed my fame,
And Sicily's Vespers asserted my power.

"When martyrs in multitudes rushed at my call,
To peril their lives for Theology's sake,
Mine too was the voice that cried, 'Sacrifice all,
With jail and with gibbet, with faggot and stake.'

"When the banner of orthodox slaughter was furled,
And subjects no more from each other dissented,
I set them at war with the rest of the world,
And for centuries national struggles fomented.

"What are all the great heroes on history's page,
But puppets who figured as I pulled the strings?
Crusades I engendered in every age,
And Faith was the leader of armies and kings.

"In those days of my glory Hope followed my track,
In warfare a firm and impartial ally,
For she constantly patted both sides on the back,
And promised them both a reward in the sky."

Here Charity, heaving disconsolate sighs,
That said "I admit what I deeply deplore,"
Uplifted to heaven her tear-suffused eyes,
Which seemed but to anger her sister the more.

"Nay, none of your cant, hypocritical minx!"
She cried in a louder and bitterer tone,
"If you feel any fancy to whimper, methinks
You might weep that the days of my glory are gone.

"What wreck of my palmy puissance is left?
What bravos and bullies my greatness declare?
Of the holy and dear Inquisition bereft,
All my fierce fulminations are impotent air.

"No racks and no pincers -- no limbs piecemeal torn,
No screams of the tortured my prowess display;
And to crown all these slights, I am shamefully shorn
Of my own proper triumph, an auto da fe.

"The Pope, who could once, in my terrible name,
Spread warfare and havoc all Christendom round,
Is sunk to such pitiful dotage and shame,
That the Vatican thunder's a ridiculed sound.

"Nay, even in England, my latest strong-hold,
And the firmest support of my paramount sway,
(In Gath or in Askelon be it not told,)
All my orthodox bulwarks are crumbling away.

"Dissenters, untested, may now, nothing loth,
As municipal officers feast and carouse;
And emancipate Catholics, taking the oath,
O horror of horrors! may sit in the House.

"If Erin no longer my altar-flame fanned,
By ceasing to murder for tithe now and then,
It might well be surmised that my paralysed hand
Had lost all control o'er the actions of men.

"And what though each orthodox candidate swears
To my thirty-nine Articles -- 'tis but a jest,
Since a bishop (proh pudor!), a bishop, declares
That such oaths are a form -- never meant as a test.

"And who is the cause that I'm laid on the shelf,
Disowned and deserted by all but a few?
My downfall and ruin I trace to yourself,
To you, I repeat, sister Charity -- you!

"Your looks and your whining expressions of ruth,
Your appeals -- ever urged with insidious wiles,
To reason and justice -- to love and to truth,
Your tears of deceit, and your plausible smiles,

"Have inveigled the bulk of my subjects away,
And have swelled your own ranks with deserters from mine:
Such conduct is base, and from this very day,
Hope and I mean to leave you and take a new line."

With the look of an angel, the voice of a dove,
Thus Charity answered -- "Since Concord alone,
Can prosper our partnership mission of love,
And exalt the attraction that calls her her own,

"I would not, dear sisters, even harbour a thought,
That might peril a friendship so truly divine;
And if in our feelings a change has been wrought,
I humbly submit that the fault is not mine.

"Christianity's attributes, holy and high,
When first, sister Faith, you delighted to teach,
And Hope only wafted your words to the sky,
I seconded gladly the labours of each:

"But when, in crusades! you began to affect
A thousand disguises and masquerades new,
When you dressed yourself up in the badges of sect,
Nay, even of Mussulman, Pagan, and Jew,

"And when in each garb, as yourself have just said,
You scattered a firebrand wherever you went,
While Hope spent her breath as she followed or led,
In fanning the flames of religious dissent,

"I raised up my voice in a solemn appeal
Against your whole course of unchristian life,
Tho' its accents were drowned in the clashing of steel,
In the clamour of councils, and schismatic strife;

"But now when men, turning from dogmas to deeds,
Bear the scriptural dictum of Jesus in mind,
That salvation depends not on canons and creeds,
But on love of the Lord, and the love of our kind,

"My voice can be heard and my arguments weighed:
Which explains why such numerous converts of late
Are under my love-breathing standard arrayed,
Who once, beneath yours, were excited to hate.

"Superstition must throw off Religion's disguise;
For men, now enlightened, not darkling like owls,
While they reverence priests who are holy and wise,
Will no longer be hoodwinked by cassocks or cowls.

"If, Sisters! forgetting your primitive troth,
You would still part the world into tyrants and slaves,
What wonder that sages should look on you both
As the virtues of dupes, for the profit of knaves?

"You would separate? Do so -- I give you full scope;
But reflect, you are both of you naught when we part;
While I, 'tis well known, can supply Faith and Hope,
When I choose for my temple an innocent heart."





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