Chuck it Doyle!
Chuck it Doyle! is a poem written by Caradoc published in The Freethinker on 15 april 1928.
Chuck it Doyle!
(WITH APOLOGIES TO G. K. CHESTERTON.)
"There is no intolerance which Religion of old has shown to Science, which Science — so called — has not in turn shown to modern psychic phenomena."
I.
Are they bringing out their faggots,
Will they murder you with maggots,
- Will they, Doyle?
Do Professors dance and high-kick
As they're piling up the pyre?
Yelling "Burn the wicked Psychic!"
Hissing "Roast the wretched liar!"
Does Andrade caper madly,
While they're boiling you in oil,
And they're flaying Dennis Bradley ?
- Do they, Doyle.
II.
Wicked savants in the lab,
- Plotting, Doyle,
How the Spirits they will nab,
- Don't they, Doyle?
How they'll light the fires of Smithfield
Break the Mediums on the wheel,
Till their secrets they'll forthwith yield,
In an agonizing squeal.
Do they plan to thumbscrew Swaffer
'Ere he shuffles mortal coil,
Making him a handsome offer,
- Really, Doyle?
III.
Does Sir Arthur Keith sit gloating,
- Psychic Doyle,
While young Huxley starts garotting?
Has the gallows been erected
In South Kensington Museum,
Are new tortures being perfected
'Ere you say your last "Te Deum?"
Have they stripped the skin off Lodge yet
'Ere they put him on the boil,
Crying out "Recant — and Lodge it,"
- Have they, Doyle?
IV.
It would greatly, I admit,
- Cheer me, Doyle.
If you put a sock in it,
- Spookey Doyle.
Sherlock Holmes makes you immortal,
Can't you rest content with that?
Never mind about Death's portal,
Slop this talking through your hat.
Write about "The Blue Carbuncle,"
- or a Monograph on Soil
But — your Ectoplasmic Uncle,
- CHUCK IT, DOYLE!
CARADOC
