Lines To An Infidel, After Having Read His Book Against Christianity

Your book I've read: I would that I had not!
For what instruction, pleasure, have I got?
Amid that artful labyrinth of doubt
Long, long I wander'd, striving to get out;
Your thread of sophistry, my only clue,
I fondly hoped would guide me rightly through:
That spider's web entangled me the more:
With desperate courage onward still I went,
Until my head was turn'd, my patience spent:
Now, now, at last, thank God! the task is o'er.
I've been a child, who whirls himself about,
Fancying he sees both earth and heaven turn round;
Till giddy, panting, sick, and wearied out,
He falls, and rues his folly on the ground.

Thomas Oldham

English

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