16.
'Tis a lie to say, 'God damns'!
Where was Heaven's Attorney General
When they first gave out such flams?
Let there be an end of shams, _225
They are mines of poisonous mineral.
17.
Statesmen damn themselves to be
Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls
To the auction of a fee;
Churchmen damn themselves to see _230
God's sweet love in burning coals.
18.
The rich are damned, beyond all cure,
To taunt, and starve, and trample on
The weak and wretched; and the poor
Damn their broken hearts to endure _235
Stripe on stripe, with groan on groan.
19.
Sometimes the poor are damned indeed
To take,--not means for being blessed,--
But Cobbett's snuff, revenge; that weed
From which the worms that it doth feed _240
Squeeze less than they before possessed.
20.
And some few, like we know who,
Damned--but God alone knows why--
To believe their minds are given
To make this ugly Hell a Heaven; _245
In which faith they live and die.
21.
Thus, as in a town, plague-stricken,
Each man be he sound or no
Must indifferently sicken;
As when day begins to thicken, _250
None knows a pigeon from a crow,--
22.
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