Read the following poem carefully before you choose your answers.
This poem was published in 1713.
The Atheist and the Acorn
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;
5And 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,
10Or 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,
15Its 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,
20And 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,
25Fell 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,
30Nor Scull had kept them in.
Question
The speaker’s response in lines 26-30 to the Atheist’s "Tears" is best described as
A. a smug rebuttal to the Atheist’s argument
B. a sympathetic account of the Atheist’s pain
C. a proclamation of the Atheist’s sensibility
D. an unexpected turn of understanding of the Atheist’s argument
E. a recognition of the importance of listening to both sides of an issue