'Tis sometimes hard to be devout at prayer,
For devils then will lead our minds astray
By some injected thought, or outward snare,
And turn the current of our thoughts away
From holy things, in spite of all our care,
So artful are they, watching night and day
To work our ruin, by some hidden guise,
Which, when found out, we heartily despise.

This story's of a countryman's devotion,
While praying with his wife and two small sons,
Who of a dog and cat had little notion,
Were winking by the fireside without noise,
When all at once, by some infernal motion,
Snap growled at Puss, and gave her such a hoise,
When she hissed, spitting, jumped from the attack
And fastened claw-deep on the farmer's back.

The boys laughed loud to see at pray'r such fun,
While father groaned, and swore an oath or two;
The cat kept scratching where she'd safety won
Above the reach of Snap, who growled, and grew
More furious barking as at Puss he run,
Till all the family were in a stew,
Nor could continue longer their devotion
With such unholy feelings and commotion.

"O Lord!" he cried, in accents quite emphatic--
Rather more serious than his praying mood--
But which he'd often done, stung with rheumatic;
His wife, as every loving woman should,
Roared out, "Confound that dog!" in tones erratic,
"And that singed cat, that's always in a feud;"
And rising from her knees in holy ire
Caught Snap and threw him plump into the fire.

The husband, sorry for his poor burnt dog,
Threw Puss in fury at his angry wife;
And she, to be revenged, commenced to flog
Her little boys, for laughing at the strife--
"Who were," she said, "like father, the old rogue,
Who never did the square thing in his life."
So on they went, a town's talk and their sport,
Until they parted at the probate court.

Such is a picture I have seen of late,
Suggesting quarrels of a family kind,
That led to greater, and a sadder fate,
To say and do things in our passion blind
Which, when with other, meaner, acts combined,
Led on by folly, in an angry state,
To sober thought, and helplessly do fail
To calmly act, as we would read this tale.

Other 19th-century Mormon poetry