Explore "Foundations of the State" by Ambrose Bierce on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Observe, dear Lord, what lively pranks / Are played by sentimental cranks! / First this one mounts his hinder hoofs / And brays the chimneys off the roofs; / Then that one, with exalted voice, / Expounds the thesis of his choice, / Our understandings to bombard, / Till all the window panes are starred! / A third augments the vocal shock / Till steeples to their bases rock, / Confessing, as they humbly nod, / They hear and mark the will of God.
A fourth in oral thunder vents / His awful penury of sense / Till dogs with sympathetic howls, / And lowing cows, and cackling fowls, / Hens, geese, and all domestic birds, / Attest the wisdom of his words.