Right onward. What? though dread of threatened death And dungeon torture made thy hand and breath Inconstant to the truth within thy heart? That truth, from which, through fear, thou twice didst Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, [start, Or not so vital as to claim thy life: And myriads had reached Heaven, who never knew Where lay the difference 'twixt the false and true! Ye, who secure 'mid trophies not your own, Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, And was it strange if he withdrew the ray The ascending day-star with a bolder eye SANCTI DOMINICI PALLIUM; A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POET AND FRIEND, FOUND WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF AT THE BEGINNING OF BUTLER'S BOOK OF THE CHURCH. POET. NOTE the moods and feelings men betray, And heed them more than aught they do or say; The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed Still-born or haply strangled in its birth; These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! These mark the spot where lies the treasure Worth! - made up of impudence and trick, FRIEND. Enough of! we're agreed, Who now defends would then have done the deed. But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway, Who but must meet the proffered hand half way POET. (aside.) (Rome's smooth go-between !) FRIEND. Laments the advice that soured a milky queen- Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, POET. What think I now? Ev'n what I thought before;What boasts tho' may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way. And bless each haut-gout cooked by monk or priest; Leaves the full lie on Content with half-truths -'s gong to swell, that do just as well; But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks, So much for you, my Friend! who own a Church, Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, And who shall blame him that he purrs applause, THE DEVIL'S THOUGHTS. I. ROM his brimstone bed at break of day To visit his snug little farm the Earth, II. Over the hill and over the dale, And he went over the plain, And backward and forward he switched his long tail As a gentleman switches his cane. III. And how then was the Devil drest? Oh! he was in his Sunday's best: His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through. IV. He saw a Lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard by his own stable; V. He saw an Apothecary on a white horse And the Devil thought of his old friend VI. He saw a cottage with a double coach-house, And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin VII. He peeped into a rich bookseller's shop, VIII. יין Down the river did glide, with wind and with tide, A pig with vast celerity; 1 And all amid them stood the tree of life High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit Of vegetable gold (query paper money?) and next to Life Our Death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by. So clomb this first grand thief Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life Sat like a cormorant. PAR. LOST, IV. The allegory here is so apt, that in a catalogue of various readings obtained from collating the MSS. one might expect to find it noted, that for "life" Cod. quid. habent," trade." Though indeed the trade, i. e. the bibliopolic, so called Kar' óxny, may be regarded as Life sensu eminentiori; a sug |