Letter Of A Young Polish Nobleman,
Warsaw, 1759

There was a farce performed the other day
In the cathedral, where, as is my wont,
I'd gone to mass.  While kneeling near the font,
I saw, when I had just begun to pray,

A mob of filthy Jews swarm up the aisle
To be baptised.  The King himself was there
And even stood as sponsor to a pair
Of thick lips with a most unpleasant smile.

Back home, I asked my steward, Mendel Gryn,
What it had been about.  "Pan Casimir,"
He said, "The man you saw was Yankev Frank,

Those were his followers: they claim that sin
Leads Man to God, but now, baptised, I hear
They've all been raised, by law, to noble rank."

At last the time had come to disembark:
Noah lead out the species one by one.
They squinted in the unfamiliar sun
After their long confinement in the ark,

Ready, it seemed, to start the world afresh,
When from the ravaged plains below there rose,
To turn the stomach and attack the nose,
An overwhelming stench of rotting flesh.

Noah threw up; his wife and family too;
Even the beasts began behaving oddly:
The world, though cleansed of sinners, smelled ungodly,

But everyone eventually grew
Accustomed to that ghastly odour, save
Noah, who drank himself into the grave.