Classic Poem

There is, so old Mohammed said
Some little time ago
(It was, if memory serves me well,
Twelve hundred years or so!),
A wondrous bridge across the space
'Twixt Earth and Paradise,
Of marvellous construction and
Most curious device.

Not wider is its footpath than
A famished spider's web;
The knife-edge of the guillotine
Is wider, so 'tis said!
And far beneath its dizzy height
Lies Hell's appalling gloom,
Where tortured souls forevermore
Work out their awful doom.
And o'er this gruesome bridge must pass
The spirits of the dead,
With no less speed and no less weight
Than Thought and Lightning wed!
The soul that travels safely here
Must sort its sins with care,
Nor e'er attempt a heavy one
Upon the span to bear.

Of all the sins that falls have caused
To those upon the trip,
That bulky load, hypocrisy,
Has made the most to slip.
If this is really so, dear friends,
Disastrously, I fear,
Will end the parlous journey when
We on the bridge appear!