And what is Penance with her knotted thong; Mortification with the shirt of hair, Wan cheek, and knees indurated with prayer, Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long; If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong...
Men, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy, Their forefathers; lo! sects are formed, and split With morbid restlessness; the ecstatic fit Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply,...
Fear hath a hundred eyes that all agree To plague her beating heart; and there is one (Nor idlest that!) which holds communion With things that were not, yet were 'meant' to be....
Even such the contrast that, where'er we move, To the mind's eye Religion doth present; Now with her own deep quietness content; Then, like the mountain, thundering from above...
Holy and heavenly Spirits as they are, Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise, With what entire affection do they prize Their Church reformed! labouring with earnest care...
Harp! could'st thou venture, on thy boldest string, The faintest note to echo which the blast Caught from the hand of Moses as it passed O'er Sinai's top, or from the Shepherd-king,...
Prejudged by foes determined not to spare, An old weak Man for vengeance thrown aside, Laud, "in the painful art of dying" tried, (Like a poor bird entangled in a snare...
"What beast in wilderness or cultured field "The lively beauty of the leopard shows? "What flower in meadow-ground or garden grows "That to the towering lily doth not yield?...
"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;...
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;...
Thus is the storm abated by the craft Of a shrewd Counselor, eager to protect The Church, whose power hath recently been checked, Whose monstrous riches threatened. So the shaft...
Where long and deeply hath been fixed the root In the blest soil of gospel truth, the Tree, (Blighted or scathed tho' many branches be, Put forth to wither, many a hopeful shoot)...
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,...
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...
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...
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,...
But, to outweigh all harm, the sacred Book, In dusty sequestration wrapt too long, Assumes the accents of our native tongue; And he who guides the plough, or wields the crook,...
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,...
Not utterly unworthy to endure Was the supremacy of crafty Rome; Age after age to the arch of Christendom Aerial keystone haughtily secure; Supremacy from Heaven transmitted pure,...