FROM COLIN CLOUT. THE COMPLAINT OF A RUSTIC THAT THE CLERGY AND PEOPLE ARE AT WAR. What can it avail To drive forth a snail? Or to make a sail And sin to exile? ... Say this, and say that: 1- Let him go to school!"... For, though my Rhyme be ragged, Tattered and jagged, Rudely rain-beaten, 1 Thus they speak of me. 2 Wallet of wisdom. 3 Learned fellow. For, as far as I can see, It is wrong with each degree: 1 Doth grudge and complain Thus each of other blother 2 The Church is put in faute; Is for they have but small art, Thus I, Colin Clout, As I go about, And wandering as I walk, I hear the people talk. 1 In allusion to Dare not look out at door He saith they have no brain Their estate to maintain, And maketh them to bow their knee Before his majesty. But this mad Amalek, Like to a Mamelek,3 No more than potshords.* He came of the sang-royal That was cast out of a butcher's stall.... Such a prelate I trow Were worthy to row Through the straits of Maroc 9 To the gibbet of Baldoc;10 He would dry up the streams Wolsey's reputed descent. 2 Growl. 6 God to witness. 3 Mameluke. 7 Beginning. 1 Meddles. For with us he so mells1 I would he were somewhere else; He will drink us so dry, With the Devil of Hell! He would so brag and crake2 To shudder and to shake, Like a fire-drake ;3 And bind them to a stake, He is such a grim sire, And such a potestolate, And such a potestate, 6 That he would break the brains Of Lucifer in his chains, And rule them each one In Lucifer's throne :- 4 An instrument of torture. |