第15章 THE LAST JUDGMENT A Jest

Ah!that life of all the dead,Hallelujahs that I hear,Make my hair stand on my head,And my soul is sick with fear.

For,when everything is severed And the play of forces done,When our sufferings fade for ever.

And the final goal is won,God Eternal we must praise,Endless hallelujahs whine,Endless hymns of glory raise,Know no more delight or pain.

Ha!I shudder on the stair Leading to perfection's goal,And I shudder when I hear,Urging me,that deathbed call.

There can only be one Heaven,That one's fully occupied,We must share it with old women Whom the teeth of Time have gnawed.

While their flesh lies underground With decay and stones o'ershovelled,Brightly hued,their souls hop round In a spiderdance enravelled.

All so skinny,all so thin,So aethereal,so chaste,Never were their forms so lean,Even when most tightly laced.

But I ruin the proceedings As my hymns of praise I holler.

And the Lord God hears my screamings,And gets hot under the collar;

Calls the highest Angel out,Gabriel,the tall and skinny,Who expels the noisy lout Without further ceremony.

I just dreamed it all,you see,Thought I faced the Court Supreme.

Good folk,don't be cross with me,It was never sin to dream.