by Coleridge · Cluster: Christianity · Faith and Doubt · Doubt
Abstract
A learned comic epitaph in the persona of a stout Lutheran mocking Purgatory and original sin while punning on Fuller’s wit; satire of theological controversy and the afterlife.
Connections
Motifs: Fire Themes & Concepts: Satire of Society, Faith and Doubt, Original Sin Forms & Genres: Epigram Historical References: Reformation, Christianity
Testo integrale / Full text
A Lutheran stout, I hold for Goose-and-Gaundry
Both the Pope’s Limbo and his fiery Laundry:
No wit e’er saw I in Original Sin,
And no Sin find I in Original Wit;
But if I’m all in the wrong, and, Grin for Grin,
Scorch’d Souls must pay for each too lucky hit, —
Oh, Fuller! much I fear, so vast thy debt,
Thou art not out of Purgatory yet;
Tho’ one, eight, three and three this year is reckon’d,
And thou, I think, didst die sub Charles the Second.
Nov. 28, 1833.
Now first published from an MS.