Working with Ulmer’s Internet Invention this summer, I’ve had a number of projects exploring students’ crises of faith. Responding to these projects got me thinking of Swift’s later poem “Day of Judgment,” written near the end of a career as a Protestant minister in Catholic Ireland. Enjoy.
With a whirl of thought oppressed,
I sunk from reverie to rest.
A horrid vision seized my head,
I saw the graves give up their dead!
Jove1, armed with terrors, bursts the skies,
And thunder roars and lightning flies!
Amazed, confused, its fate unknown,
The world stands trembling at his throne!
While each pale sinner hangs his head,
Jove, nodding, shook the heavens, and said:
‘Offending race of human kind,
By nature, reason, learning, blind;
You who, through frailty, stepped aside;
And you who never fell—through pride:
You who in different sects have shammed,
And come to see each other damned;
(So some folks told you, but they knew
No more of Jove’s designs than you)
The world’s mad business now is o’er,
And I resent these pranks no more.
I to such blockheads set my wit!
I damn such fools!—Go, go, you’re bit’
