Hast thou by statute shoved from its design
The Saviour's feast, his own blest bread and wine,
And made the symbols of atoning grace
An office key, a picklock to a place,
That infidels may prove their title good
By an oath dipped in sacramental blood?
A blot that will be still a blot, in spite
Of all that grave apologists may write :
And though a bishop toil to cleanse the stain,
He wipes and scours the silver cup in vain.
And hast thou sworn on every slight pretence,
Till perjuries are common as bad pence,

While thousands, careless of the damning sin,
Kiss the book's outside, who ne'er looked within ?
Hast thou, when heaven has clothed thee with dis-
And long provoked, repaid thee to thy face; [grace,
For thou hast known eclipses, and endured
Dimness and anguish, all thy beams obscured,
When sin has shed dishonour on thy brow;

And never of a sabler hue than now)

Hast thou, with heart perverse and conscience seared, Despising all rebuke, still persevered,

And having chosen evil, scorned the voice

That cried, Repent !---and gloried in thy choice?
Thy fastings, when calamity at last,

Suggests th' expedient of a yearly fast,

What mean they? Canst thou dream there is a a power

In lighter diet at a later hour,

To charm to sleep the threatening of the skies,
And hide past folly from all-seeing eyes?
The past, that wins deliverance, and suspends
The stroke, that a vindictive God intends,
Is to renounce hypocrisy; to draw
Thy life upon the pattern of the law;
To war with pleasure idolized before;
To vanquish lust, and wear its yoke no more.

All fasting else, whate'er be the pretence,
Is wooing mercy by renewed offence.

Hast thou within thee sin, that in old time,
Brought fire from heaven, the sex-abusing crime,
Whose horrid perpetration stamps disgrace,
Baboons are free from, upon human race?
Think on the fruitful and well-watered spot,
That fed the flocks and herds of wealthy Lot,
Where Paradise seemed still vouchsafed on earth,
Burning and scorched into perpetual dearth,
Or, in his words who damned the base desire,
Suffering the vengeance of eternal fire:
Then nature injured, scandalized, defiled,
Unveiled her blushing cheek, looked on, and smiled;
Beheld with joy the lovely scene defaced,

And praised the wrath that laid her beauties waste.
Far be the thought from any verse of mine,
And farther still the formed and fixed design,
To thrust the charge of deeds, that I detest,
Against an innocent unconscious breast:
The man that dares traduce, because he can
With safety to himself, is not a man:
An individual is a sacred mark,

Not to be pierced in play, or in the dark;
But public censure speaks a public foe,
Unless a zeal for virtue guide the blow.

The priestly brotherhood, devout, sincere,
From mean self-interest and ambition clear,
Their hope in Heaven, servility their scorn,
Prompt to persuade, expostulate, and warn,
Their wisdom pure, and given them from above,
Their usefulness ensured by zeal and love,
As meek as the man Moses, and withal
As bold as in Agrippa's presence Paul,
Should fly the world's contaminating touch,
Holy and unpolluted :---are thine such?

Except a few with Eli's spirit blest,
Hophni and Phineas may describe the rest.
Where shall a teacher look in days like these,
For ears and hearts that he can hope to please?
Look to the poor-the simple and the plain
Will hear perhaps thy salutary strain:
Humility is gentle, apt to learn,

Speak but the word, will listen and return.
Alas, not so! the poorest of the flock
Are proud, and set their faces as a rock;
Denied that earthly opulence they choose,
God's better gift they scoff at, and refuse.
The rich the produce of a nobler stem,
Are more intelligent at least; try them :
Oh vain inquiry! they without remorse
Are altogether gone a devious course:

Where beckoning pleasure leads them, wildly stray;
Have burst the bands, and cast the yoke away.
Now borne upon the wings of truths sublime,
Review thy dim original and prime.

This island, spot of unreclaimed rude earth,
The cradle that received thee at thy birth,
Was rocked by many a rough Norwegian blast,
And Danish howlings scared thee as they passed;
For thou wast born amid the din of arms,
And sucked a breast that panted with alarms.
While yet thou wast a grovelling puling chit,
Thy bones not fashioned, and thy joints not knit,
The Roman taught thy stubborn knee to bow,
Though twice a Cæsar could not bend thee now:
His victory was that of orient light,

When the sun's shafts disperse the gloom of night.
Thy language at this distant moment shows
How much the country to the conquerer owes;
Expressive, energetic, and refined,

It sparkles with the gems he left behind :

He brought thy land a blessing when he came,
He found thee savage, and he left thee tame;
Taught thee to clothe thy pinked and painted hide,
And grace thy figure with a soldier's pride;
He sowed the seeds of order where he went,
Improved thee far beyond his own intent,
And, while he ruled thee by the sword alone,
Made thee at last a warrior like his own.
Religion, if in heavenly truths attired,
Needs only to be seen to be admired;

But thine, as dark as witcheries of the night,
Was formed to harden hearts and shock the sight;
Thy Druids struck the well-hung harps they bore
With fingers deeply dyed in human gore;
And, while the victim slowly bled to death,
Upon the rolling chords rung out his dying breath.
Who brought the lamp that with awaking beams
Dispelled thy gloom, and broke away thy dreams,
Tradition, now decrepid and worn out,

Babbler of ancient fables, leaves a doubt:

But still light reached thee; and those gods of thine, Wodon and Thor, cach tottering in his shrine,

Fell broken and defaced at his own door,

As Dagon in Philistia long before,

But Rome with sorceries and magic hand
Soon raised a cloud that darkened every land;
And thine was smothered in the stench and fog
Of Tiber's marshes, and the papal bog.

Then priests with bulls and briefs, and shaven crowns,
And griping fists, and unrelenting frowns,
Legates and delegates with powers from hell,
Though heavenly in pretension, fleeced thee well;
And to this hour, to keep it fresh in mind,
Some twigs of that old scourge are left behind *.

* Which may be found at Doctors' Commons.

Thy soldiery, the pope's well managed pack,
Were trained beneath his lash, and knew the smack,
And, when he laid them on the scent of blood,
Would hunt a Saracen through fire and flood.
Lavish of life to win an empty tomb,

That proved a mint of wealth, a mine to Rome,
They left their bones beneath unfriendly skies,
His worthless absolution all the prize.
Thou wast the veriest slave in days of yore,
That ever dragged a chain, or tugged an oar;
Thy monarchs, arbitrary, fierce, unjust,
Themselves the slaves of bigotry or lust,
Disdained thy counsels, only in distress
Found thee a goodly spunge for power to press.
Thy chiefs, the lords of many a petty fee,
Provoked and harrassed, in return plagued thee;
Called thee away from peaceable employ,
Domestic happiness and rural joy,

To waste thy life in arıns, or lay it down
In causeless feuds and bickerings of their own.
Thy parliaments adored on bended knees
The sovereignty, they were convened to please;
Whate'er was asked, too timid to resist,
Complied with, and were graciously dismissed;
And if some Spartan soul a doubt expressed,
And blushing at the tameness of the rest,
Dared to suppose the subject had a choice,
He was a traitor by the general voice.

Oh slave! with powers thou didst not dare exert,
Verse cannot stoop so low as thy desert;

It shakes the sides of splenetic disdain,

Thou self-entitled ruler of the main,

To trace thee to the date when yon fair sea,

That clips thy shores, had no such charms for thee;
When other nations flew from coast to coast,
And thou hadst neither fleet nor flag to boast.