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PRIMITIVE I ATE my fill of a whale that died | |
| And stranded after a month at sea…. | |
| There is a pain in my inside. | |
| Why have the Gods afflicted me? | |
| Ow! I am purged till I am a wraith! | 5 |
| Wow! I am sick till I cannot see! | |
| What is the sense of Religion and Faith? | |
| Look how the Gods have afflicted me! | |
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PAGAN How can the skin of rat or mouse hold | |
| Anything more than a harmless flea?… | 10 |
| The burning plague has taken my household. | |
| Why have my Gods afflicted me? | |
| All my kith and kin are deceased, | |
| Though they were as good as good could be, | |
| I will out and batter the family priest, | 15 |
| Because my Gods have afflicted me! | |
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MEDIÆVAL My privy and well drain into each other | |
| After the custom of Christendie…. | |
| Fevers and fluxes are wasting my mother. | |
| Why has the Lord afflicted me? | 20 |
| The Saints are helpless for all I offer— | |
| So are the clergy I used to fee. | |
| Henceforward I keep my cash in my coffer, | |
| Because the Lord has afflicted me. | |
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MATERIAL I run eight hundred hens to the acre | 25 |
| They die by dozens mysteriously…. | |
| I am more than doubtful concerning my Maker. | |
| Why has the Lord afflicted me? | |
| What a return for all my endeavour— | |
| Not to mention the L. S. D! | 30 |
| I am an atheist now and for ever, | |
| Because this God has afflicted me! | |
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PROGRESSIVE Money spent on an Army or Fleet | |
| Is homicidal lunacy…. | |
| My son has been killed in the Mons retreat, | 35 |
| Why is the Lord afflicting me? | |
| Why are murder, pillage and arson | |
| And rape allowed by the Deity? | |
| I will write to the Times, deriding our parson | |
| Because my God has afflicted me. | 40 |
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CHORUS We had a kettle: we let it leak: | |
| Our not repairing it made it worse. | |
| We haven’t had any tea for a week…. | |
| The bottom is out of the Universe! | |
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CONCLUSION This was none of the good Lord’s pleasure, | 45 |
| For the Spirit He breathed in Man is free; | |
| But what comes after is measure for measure, | |
| And not a God that afflicteth thee. | |
| As was the sowing so the reaping | |
| Is now and evermore shall be. | 50 |
| Thou art delivered to thine own keeping. | |
| Only Thyself hath afflicted thee! | |
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