22
’Tis well to reverence our great departed;
But when our comic side is thus paraded
In sire’s cast suits of fame, by sons degraded
Who clash their swords, themselves being chicken-hearted,
Like windbags puff themselves with those sires’ fame:
Methinks that fleas can boast themselves the same,
A lion tolerates in his royal mane,
That lion’s blood is circling in their vein!
This bungler has to journey many a rood
To fetch his proofs, to times before the flood;
For charlatans are more at home and able
Where all clear outlines ’neath a dappled haze
Subtract themselves from critics’ serious gaze.
But let us soberly review this fable:
I honour Hanuman, his fame assert,
Truth, though, will ne’er diminish his desert;
In Rama, in man’s form, god being embodied,
And not in ape, to man the preference gave.
This man a warrior was, with whom a brave
But mere ally, the apish hero plodded.
Apes’ prior claims! ’tis a mere craze that haunts him,
And in the magic bridge he vainly vaunts him;
’Twas, true enough, by apish hands erected
But Samudra, the sea god, first projected
The whole design; we ape folk, to complete it,
Brought nought but sturdy thews, which I’ve admitted,
Nor wit nor mind—i’faith, a feeble nimbus—
E’en trunks of elephants bear joists and timbers.
’Tis ludicrous to boast the modest share is
Ours in the Hindoos’ Pantheistic ritual
When every loon can claim a place in it. You all
Have heard how bulls are sacred in Benares.
