Than aught the sky's fantastic element,
When most fantastic, offers to the view.
Saw we not Henry scourged at Becket's shrine ?
Lo! John self-stripped of his insignia :— crown,
Sceptre and mantle, sword and ring, laid down
At a proud Legate's feet! The spears that line
Baronial halls the opprobrious insult feel;
And angry Ocean roars a vain appeal.
BLACK Demons hovering o'er his mitred head, To Cæsar's successor the Pontiff spake :
"Ere I absolve thee, stoop! that on thy neck Levelled with earth this foot of mine may tread." Then he, who to the altar had been led,
He whose strong arm the Orient could not check,
He who had held the Soldan at his beck,
Stooped, of all glory disinherited,
And even the common dignity of man !.
Amazement strikes the crowd: while many turn
Their eyes away in sorrow, others burn
With scorn, invoking a vindictive ban
From outraged Nature; but the sense of most
In abject sympathy with power is lost.
UNLESS to Peter's Chair the viewless wind
Must come and ask permission when to blow,
What further empire would it have? for now
A ghostly Domination, unconfined
As that by dreaming Bards to Love assigned,
Sits there in sober truth, - to raise the low,
Perplex the wise, the strong to overthrow;
Through earth and heaven to bind and to unbind!
Resist, the thunder quails thee! - crouch,
Shall be thy recompense! from land to land
The ancient thrones of Christendom are stuff
For occupation of a magic wand,
And 'tis the Pope that wields it: whether rough Or smooth his front, our world is in his hand!
TO THE CLOSE OF THE TROUBLES IN THE REIGN
How soon, alas! did Man, created pure,
By Angels guarded, deviate from the line
Prescribed to duty!—woful forfeiture
He made by wilful breach of law divine.
With like perverseness did the Church abjure
Obedience to her Lord, and haste to twine,
'Mid Heaven-born flowers that shall for aye endure, Weeds on whose front the world had fixed her sign. O Man! if with thy trials thus it fares,
If good can smooth the way to evil choice,
From all rash censure be the mind kept free ;
He only judges right who weighs, compares,
And, in the sternest sentence which his voice
Pronounces, ne'er abandons Charity.
FROM false assumption rose, and, fondly hailed
By superstition, spread the Papal power;
Yet do not deem the Autocracy prevailed
Thus only, even in error's darkest hour.
She daunts, forth-thundering from her spiritual tower,
Brute rapine, or with gentle lure she tames.
Justice and Peace through her uphold their claims;
And Chastity finds many a sheltering bower.
Realm there is none that, if controlled or swayed
By her commands, partakes not, in degree,
Of good, o'er manners, arts, and arms diffused:
Yes, to thy domination, Roman See,
Though miserably, oft monstrously, abused
By blind ambition, be this tribute paid.
"HERE Man more purely lives, less oft doth fall, More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed, More safely rests, dies happier, is freed
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal A brighter crown. On Cistertian wall
That confident assurance may be read;
And, to like shelter, from the world have fled
Increasing multitudes. The potent call
Doubtless shall cheat full oft the heart's desires;
Yet, while the rugged Age on pliant knee
Vows to rapt Fancy humble fealty,
A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;
Where'er they rise, the sylvan waste retires,
And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea.
DEPLORABLE his lot who tills the ground,
His whole life long tills it, with heartless toil
Of villain-service, passing with the soil
To each new Master, like a steer or hound,
Or like a rooted tree, or stone earth-bound;
But mark how gladly, through their own domains,
The Monks relax or break these iron chains;
While Mercy, uttering, through their voice, a sound Echoed in Heaven, cries out, "Ye Chiefs, abate These legalized oppressions! Man, whose pame And nature God disdained not,
Man, whose soul
- cannot forfeit his high claim
To live and move exempt from all control
Which fellow-feeling doth not mitigate!"
RECORD We too, with just and faithful pen,
That many hooded Cenobites there are,
Who in their private cells have yet a care
Of public quiet; unambitious Men,
Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken;
Whose fervent exhortations from afar
Move Princes to their duty, peace or war;
And ofttimes in the most forbidding den
Of solitude, with love of science strong,
How patiently the yoke of thought they bear!
How subtly glide its finest threads along!
Spirits that crowd the intellectual sphere
With mazy boundaries, as the astronomer
With orb and cycle girds the starry throng.
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