Versos English Ambrose Bierce Jerusalem, Old and New

English poem

Jerusalem, Old and New

by (1842–1914)

Listen in the reader

Didymus Dunkleton Doty Don John Is a parson of high degree; He holds forth of Sundays to marvelling crowds Who wonder how vice can still be When smitten so stoutly by Didymus Don— Disciple of Calvin is he. But sinners still laugh at his talk of the New Jerusalem—ha-ha, te-he! And biting their thumbs at the doughty Don John— This parson of high degree— They think of the streets of a village they know, Where horses still sink to the knee, Contrasting its muck with the pavement of gold That’s laid in the other citee. They think of the sign that still swings, uneffaced By winds from the salt, salt sea, Which tells where he trafficked in tipple, of yore— Don Dunkleton Johnny, D. D. Didymus Dunkleton Doty Don John Still plays on his fiddle-D. D., His lambkins still bleat in full psalmody sweet, And the devil still pitches the key.