The Poetry Corner

Lines To An Infidel, After Having Read His Book Against Christianity

By Thomas Oldham

Your book I've read: I would that I had not! For what instruction, pleasure, have I got? Amid that artful labyrinth of doubt Long, long I wander'd, striving to get out; Your thread of sophistry, my only clue, I fondly hoped would guide me rightly through: That spider's web entangled me the more: With desperate courage onward still I went, Until my head was turn'd, my patience spent: Now, now, at last, thank God! the task is o'er. I've been a child, who whirls himself about, Fancying he sees both earth and heaven turn round; Till giddy, panting, sick, and wearied out, He falls, and rues his folly on the ground.