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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365744" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Hellfire & Reuben Rose</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">A hundred and thirty years has passed<br>Since Reuben strode our turf, <br>A Hell-fire Methodist Preacher<br>Cursing souls with every breath, <br>He claimed an exclusive license, sanctioned<br>By our gracious Lord, <br>To dispense both sulphur and brimstone<br>To the sinners of the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At Moonta, in the mining days, <br>When copper ruled as king, <br>A fluctuation in the price<br>Soon ruined everything.<br>Families left in droves; for jobs<br>Were harder then to find, <br>The congregations withered, <br>They were the few that stayed behind.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There wasn't enough to pay the fund<br>To keep their minister, <br>So he took off to Castlemaine<br>To save Victoria, <br>And when the Primitive Methodists<br>Declined to send another, <br>All Hell broke loose at the altar then, <br>Set brother against brother.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Enraged at the Executive<br>For showing them such contempt, <br>Half of the congregation said: <br>'We'll fix their argument! <br>We'll just secede from the Primitives<br>And run our own affairs.'<br>But Reuben Rose was a Primitive, <br>Who had his own ideas.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Who owns the Church, ' he sagely said, <br>'The age-old Primitives! '<br>'Not so, ' declared the rebels, then, <br>'We paid for it with our tithes! '<br>But neither side would give an inch, <br>They claimed it, theirs alone, <br>Two armies of the Lord lined up<br>To seize the good lord's throne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so it was that, Sunday noon, <br>The rebels got there first, <br>They sang a lot of Sankey's hymns<br>To scorn the Primitive's verse, <br>They raised their voices mightily<br>And damn near raised the roof, <br>The Lord was on their side, they said<br>To the others, in reproof.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Primitives stood there at the back, <br>And thought to rush the font, <br>A thrust along the centre aisle<br>A rush around the flank, <br>But Reuben Rose stood still and grim<br>His eyes as black as sin, <br>The veins along his forehead popped<br>Like corn in the summertime.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He waited 'til the evening prayer<br>And reached the altar first, <br>Secured it for the Primitive's<br>Against a greater force.<br>The earth seemed then to open up<br>To fill men's eyes and bones<br>With the stink of the smell of sulphur<br>And a tisane of old brimstone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The rebels seized the chapel gate, <br>Locked it against the foe, <br>The Primitives went around the side, <br>Took an iron bar to the door, <br>Reuben Rose picked up a stone, <br>And held it up on high, <br>Then burst the lock on the chapel door, <br>Left the rebels high and dry.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The people from the mine soon heard<br>The threats no Lord forgives, <br>Then marched up there in a body to<br>Eject the Primitives, <br>'The battle's not yet over, '<br>Reuben Rose was heard to shout, <br>'You may be one with the devil, <br>But you never will lock us out! '</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It came to Bloody Monday, when<br>The Primitives took hold, <br>Assaulted the chapel building <br>In the morning, gained control.<br>But soon retaliation was<br>The order of the day, <br>The rebels beat the victors off, <br>The rebels soon held sway.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They nailed up the windows and<br>They boarded up the doors, <br>They made a mighty fortress of<br>The chapel of the Lord, <br>And so in pure frustration, when<br>The Primitives saw black, <br>They marched to the one time minister, <br>Demanded his furniture back.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A crowd of angry women soon, <br>They marched there, hobble-hob, <br>They'd had their fill of Primitives, <br>And Reuben Rose's mob, <br>Each woman carried the sweeping broom<br>That lay about her house, <br>To sweep the Primitive Methodists<br>Away from East Moonta South.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The seeds of time have swallowed<br>Reuben Rose, and all his clan, <br>The church, it lies in rubble, <br>All in one with the works of man.<br>But if you listen carefully, <br>Right next to the pile of lime, <br>You'll hear the veins of his forehead, <br>Pop like corn in the summertime.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(And somewhere up in heaven<br>By the side of the Pearly Gates, <br>The Primitives are waiting, <br>Over a hundred years too late.<br>The rebels are inside, cosy, while<br>Old Reuben is heard to shout: <br>'You may be one with the devil, <br>But you never will lock us out!) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">20 July 2008</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=David+Lewis+Paget">David Lewis Paget</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=365744" data-title="Hellfire & Reuben Rose de David Lewis Paget" data-description="A hundred and thirty years has passed
Since Reuben strode our turf, 
A Hell-fire Methodist Preacher
Cursing souls with every breath, 
He claimed an exclusive license, sanctioned
By our gracious Lord, 
To dispense both sulphur and brimstone
To the ..."></div>
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