Classic Poem

God from a Cloud to Spender spoke
And breathed command: " Take thou this Rod,
And smite therewith the living Rock " ;
And Spender hearkened unto God.

God shook the Cloud from East to West,
Riding the swart tempestuous blast;
And Spender, like a man possess'd,
Stood quaking, tremulous, aghast.

And Spender struck the living Rock,
And lo! the living Rock was wet,
From which henceforth at twelve o'clock
Issues the Westminster Gazette.

Swift at the stroke of Spender's pen
The viscid torrents crawl and writhe
Down the long lanes of dogs and men
To Canning Town and Rotherhithe,

To Bermondsey and Wapping Stair,
To Clapham Junction and to Sheen,
To Leicester and to Grosvenor Square
Bubble those floods of bilious green.

To Old Bond Street, the street of gems,
To Hammersmith and Stamford's rill;
Troubling the sources of the Thames
Mounting the crest of Highgate Hill.

And higher still the torrent flows
And circles Zion's pearly wall,
Wherein, by Mary's garden close,
There sit Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

For there the risen souls flock in
And there they innocently strip,
And purge themselves of all their sin
Up to the navel or the hip.

And such as have the skill to swim
Attain at length the farther shore
Cleansed and rejoiced in every limb,
And hate the Germans more and more.

They are redeemed from heresies
And all their frowardness forget;
The scales are fallen from their eyes
Thanks to the Westminster Gazette.