XIII.

WICLIFFE.

ONCE more the Church is seized with sudden fear,

And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed:

Yea, his dry bones to ashes are consumed

And flung into the brook that travels near;

Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear, Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind, Though seldom heard by busy human kind)—

"As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
"Into the Avon, Avon to the tide

"Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
"Into main Ocean they, this deed accurst

"An emblem yields to friends and enemies

"How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified

'By truth, shall spread, throughout the world dispersed.

XIV.

CORRUPTIONS OF THE HIGHER CLERGY.

"Woe to you, Prelates! rioting in ease

"And cumbrous wealth-the shame of your estate; "You, on whose progress dazzling trains await "Of pompous horses; whom vain titles please; "Who will be served by others on their knees, "Yet will yourselves to God no service pay; "Pastors who neither take nor point the "To Heaven; for, either lost in vanities "Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know "And speak the word

way

Alas! of fearful things

'Tis the most fearful when the people's eye
Abuse hath cleared from vain imaginings;
And taught the general voice to prophesy
Of Justice armed, and Pride to be laid low.

XV.

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER.

AND what is Penance with her knotted thong;
Mortification with the shirt of hair,

Wan cheek, and knees indúrated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;

If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong
The pious, humble, useful Secular,

And rob the people of his daily care,

Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong?

Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives

For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him
Who on the good of others builds his own!

XVI.

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS.

YET more,-round many a Convent's blazing fire
Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun ;

There Venus sits disguisèd like a Nun,—
While Bacchus, clothed in semblance of a Friar,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire-

To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice

Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,

Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse

Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,

66

Whose votive burthen is-" OUR KINGDOM'S HERE!"

XVII.

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES.

THREATS Come which no submission may assuage,
No sacrifice avert, no power dispute ;

The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute,
And, 'mid their choirs unroofed by selfish rage,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage;
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.

The owl of evening and the woodland fox
For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose:
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks—
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.