Religion

The Atheist and the Acorn

by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea 1661–1720

From Miscellany Poems, on Several Occasions (1713)

ReligionNature

Methinks this World is oddly made,
And ev'ry thing's amiss,
A dull presuming Atheist said,
As stretch'd he lay beneath a Shade;
And instanced in this:

Behold, quoth he, that mighty thing,
A Pumpkin, large and round,
Is held but by a little String,
Which upwards cannot make it spring,
Or bear it from the Ground.

Whilst on this Oak, a Fruit so small,
So disproportion'd, grows;
That, who with Sence surveys this All,
This universal Casual Ball,
Its ill Contrivance knows.

My better Judgment wou'd have hung
That Weight upon a Tree,
And left this Mast, thus slightly strung,
'Mongst things which on the Surface sprung,
And small and feeble be.

No more the Caviller cou'd say,
Nor farther Faults descry;
For, as he upwards gazing lay,
An Acorn, loosen'd from the Stay,
Fell down upon his Eye.

Th' offended Part with Tears ran o'er,
As punish'd for the Sin:
Fool! had that Bough a Pumpkin bore,
Thy Whimseys must have work'd no more,
Nor Scull had kept them in.

✦ ✦ ✦

A fable in which a self-satisfied atheist, lying under an oak, complains that the world is oddly made and is struck on the eye by an acorn. Had the bough borne a pumpkin, the poem says, his speculations would have ended there.

MLA

Finch, Anne, Countess of Winchilsea. “The Atheist and the Acorn.” Poetry Codex, poetrycodex.com/poem/finch/6/.

Chicago

Finch, Anne, Countess of Winchilsea. “The Atheist and the Acorn.” Poetry Codex. https://poetrycodex.com/poem/finch/6/.

Read this poem with the Codex →

More by Anne Finch, Countess of Winchilsea