TO AN OLD SERMON by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY

Old Sermon, ere I relegate
Thy ancient dullness to my grate,
I'll scan again the yellow pages
That tell our services and wages.

Places and dates inscribed I find,
That bring events and scenes to mind,
And here to see thy martyrdom
The living and the dead may come.

The audience that heard thee first
My memory has not treated worst,
Perhaps because its frown was feared,
And by its smiles my heart was cheered.

For, Sermon old, we did not spare
The sinners we confronted there,
And they who praised (forgiving souls)
Were those we'd hauled across the coals.

But, later on, without mistake,
Since time revenge's thirst doth slake,
Another people served us right,
And gave us our quietus quite.

It was a winter afternoon,
But might have been a day in June.
Or August even, for the air
Of ancient seasons lingered there.

The windows were as tightly shut
As though secured by bolt and nut,
The place from oxygen as free
As dungeon of the east may be.

We pictured Jonah's dismal fate,
And penitence that comes too late
To saints now sent to sinners dead
Who travel their own way instead.

We showed the godly's danger who
Proclaim the right they fail to do,
Whether the sacred desk they smite
Or slumber when they ought to fight.

'T was all in vain; the sound that came
Could not deserve repentance' name;
It was the language of repose
Whose vocal organ is the nose.

"What meanest thou, O sleeper?" hailed
The seaman, and the prophet wailed;
"What meanest thou, O sleeper?" we,
And snoring sounded like the sea.

And when our climax's height was reached
And Jonah and the whale were beached,
The census I was loath to take,
Discovered only seven awake.

My wrath within me waxing warm,
I now resolved to break the charm,
To bring their judgment to their ears,
And reach our hearers (?) through their fears.

The pulpit was the ancient kind
By Puritanic art designed;
And, like a cloudlet in the sky,
Or dizzy crag, it hung on high.

A ponderous volume bound in gilt
Lay on its outer edge a-tilt,
And thence by gesture not too rough,
With heavenward gaze I launched it off.

Down went the tome with sudden spang!
With sudden roar the rafters rang.
"What, sleeping sinner, aileth thee?"
With sudden application, we.

Old Sermon, we remember well
The afternoon this all befell.
Great was the consternation there,
And loud the buzz that filled the air.

As when, with summer languor fed,
One thinks perchance the bees are dead,
And overturns the drowsy hive
To find them very much alive.

Our anti-climax came as well,
And words of mine would fail to tell
The deacons' wrath, the sexton's vow,
The all but universal row.

The action was a master stroke
That our necks, not the others' broke;
And, therefore, on the shelf today
We moulder in deserved decay.

We moulder now, though presently
The flames will work a change in thee;
But heaven forbid, what none can tell,
That I should meet the flame as well.

Moral
The preacher is to preach the word;
To wear, but not to wield the sword;
To watch the congregation's pulse;
To seek, but not to force results.

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