XVII.

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 dis-
persed."

XVIII.

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 way
To Heaven; for, either lost in vanities
Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know
And speak the word "Alas! of fearful things
"T is 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.

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 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 favor 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 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,

Whose votive burden 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;
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.

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,