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XIX.

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER.

AND what is Penance with her knotted thong;
Mortification with the shirt of hair,
Wan cheek, and knees indúrated with
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long;

prayer,

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, both in the esteem
Of God and man, place higher than to him
Who on the good of others builds his own!

XX.

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS.

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

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

XXI.

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;
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

And the

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

XXII.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

THE lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek
Through saintly habit than from effort due
To unrelenting mandates that pursue
With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak)
Goes forth-unveiling timidly a cheek
Suffused with blushes of celestial hue,

While through the Convent's gate to open view
Softly she glides, another home to seek.
Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,
An Apparition more divinely bright!
Not more attractive to the dazzled sight
Those watery glories, on the stormy brine

Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine,
And the green vales lie hushed in sober light!

XXIII.

CONTINUED.

YET many a Novice of the cloistral shade,
And many chained by vows, with eager glee
The warrant hail, exulting to be free;

Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed

In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,
Their liquid world, for bold discovery,

In all her quarters temptingly displayed!

Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass
The threshold, whither shall they turn to find
The hospitality—the alms (alas!

Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed?
Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind

To keep this new and questionable road?

XXIV.

SAINTS.

YE, too, must fly before a chasing hand,
Angels and Saints, in every hamlet mourned!
Ah! if the old idolatry be spurned,

Let not your radiant Shapes desert the Land:
Her adoration was not your demand,
The fond heart proffered it—the servile heart ;
And therefore are ye summoned to depart,
Michael, and thou, St. George, whose flaming brand
The Dragon quelled; and valiant Margaret
Whose rival sword a like Opponent slew :
And rapt Cecilia seraph-haunted Queen
Of harmony; and weeping Magdalene,
Who in the penitential desert met
Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew!

XXV.

THE VIRGIN,

MOTHER! whose virgin bosom was uncrost
With the least shade of thought to sin allied;
Woman! above all women glorified,

Our tainted nature's solitary boast;
Purer than foam on central ocean tost;
Brighter than eastern skies at daybreak strewn
With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast;
Thy Image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible Power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in Thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene!

XXVI.

APOLOGY.

Not utterly unworthy to endure
Was the supremacy of crafty Rome;
Age after age to the arch of Christendom
Aërial keystone haughtily secure;

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