Page:Sibylline Leaves (Coleridge).djvu/106

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84

Now having faith implicit that he can't err.
Hoping his hopes, alarm'd with his alarms;
And now believing him a sly inchanter,
Yet still afraid to break his brittle charms,

Lest some mad Devil suddenly unhamp'ring,
Slap-dash! the imp should fly off with the steeple,
On revolutionary broom-stick scampering.—
O ye soft-headed and soft-hearted people,

If you can stay so long from slumber free,
My muse shall make an effort to salute 'e:
For lo! a very dainty simile
Flash'd sudden through my brain, and 'twill just suit 'e!

You know that water-fowl that cries. Quack! quack!?
Full often have I seen a waggish crew
Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on it's back,
The ivy-haunting bird, that cries, Tu-whoo!

Both plunged together in the deep mill-stream,
(Mill-stream, or farm-yard pond, or mountain-lake,)
Shrill, as a Church and Constitution scream,
Tu-whoo! quoth Broad-face, and down dives the Drake!