The world it is empty, the heart will die, I've lived and loved, and that was to-day- LINES. SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGARIUS OB. ANNO DOM. 1088. Νο more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope, Soon shall I now before my God appear, By him to be acquitted, as I hope; REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE. Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, All are not strong alike through storms to steer death And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Inconstant to the truth within thy heart? That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst start, Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, Or not so vital as to claim thy life; And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true! Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own, O first the age, and then the man compare! Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, And was it strange if he withdrew the ray The ascending day-star with a bolder eye I SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM; A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND, FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S BOOK OF THE CHURCH. POET. NOTE the moods and feelings men betray, And heed them more than aught they do or say; The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed Still-born or haply strangled in its birth; These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth! made up of impudence and trick, With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick, FRIEND. Enough of! we're agreed, Who now defends would then have done the deed. But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway, Who but must meet the proffered hand half way When courteous POET. (Aside.) (Rome's smooth go-between !) FRIEND. Laments the advice that soured a milky queen— Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, With actual cautery staunched the church's wounds. And tho' he deems that with too broad a blur We damn the French and Irish massacre, Yet blames them both-and thinks the Pope might err ! What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield Against such gentle foes to take the field Whose beck'ning hands the mild Caduceus wield? POET. What think I now? Ev'n what I thought before ;— What boasts tho' may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray Snooth When the shown feeling points a different way. So much for you, my Friend! who own a Church, And who shall blame him that he purrs applause, When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause; And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws! Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws 27* THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS. I. FROM his brimstone bed at break of day, To visit his snug little farm the Earth, II. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane. III. And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through. IV. He saw a Lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; And the Devil smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother Abel. V. He saw an Apothecary on a white horse Ride by on his vocations; And the Devil thought of his old friend VI. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, |