And with blood for dew, the bosom boils; Of a coal-black giant flower of hell! CHORUS. What maketh heaven, That maketh hell. X. So, as John called now, through the fire amain, For the Face, with his daily buffets rife And his voice, like a mad dog's choking bark, Forth John's soul flared into the dark. SUBJOINETH THE ABBOT DEODAET. God help all poor souls lost in the dark! HOLY-CROSS DAY. ON WHICH THE JEWS WERE FORCED TO ATTEND AN ANNUAL CHRISTIAN SERMON IN ROME. nay, ["Now was come about Holy-Cross Day, and now must my lord preach his first sermon to the Jews: as it was of old cared for in the merciful bowels of the Church, that, so to speak, a crumb at least from her conspicuous table here in Rome, should be, though but once yearly, cast to the famishing dogs, under-trampled and bespitten-upon beneath the feet of the guests. And a moving sight in truth, this, of so many of the besotted blind restif and ready-to-perish Hebrews! now maternally brought (for He saith, 'Compel them to come in') haled, as it were, by the head and hair, and against their obstinate hearts, to partake of the heavenly grace. What awakening, what striving with tears, what working of a yeasty conscience! Nor was my lord wanting to himself on so apt an occasion; witness the abundance of conversions which did incontinently reward him though not to my lord be altogether the glory." -- Diary by the Bishop's Secretary, 1600.] What the Jews really said, on thus being driven to church, was rather to this effect : I. Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! Take the church-road, for the bell's due chime II. Boh, here's Barnabas! Job, that's you? Fair play 's a jewel! Leave friends in the lurch? III. Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, IV. Bow, wow, wow a bone for the dog! I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass, To help and handle my lord's hour-glass! Didst ever behold so lithe a chine? His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine. V. Aaron's asleep-shove hip to haunch, Now you I've his curtsey and what comes next? See to our converts VI. you doomed black dozen No stealing away nor cog nor cozen! You five, that were thieves, deserve it fairly; You seven, that were beggars, will live less sparely; You took your tn and dipped in the hat, Got fortune Give first your and fortune gets you; mind that! VII. groan - compunction 's at work; Here's a knife, clip quick it's a sign of grace Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. VIII. Whom now is the bishop a-leering at? I meddle no more with the worst of trades IX. Groan all together now, whee - hee - hee! It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed, To usher in worthily Christian Lent. X. It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, creed: Which gutted my purse, would throttle my XI. But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, XII. For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, And spoke, "This world has been harsh and strange; Something is wrong: there needeth a change. But what, or where? at the last or first? In one point only we sinned, at worst. XIII. "The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, And again in his border see Israel set. When Judah beholds Jerusalem, XIV. “Ay, the children of the chosen race XV. "God spoke, and gave us the word to keep: XVI. "Thou! if thou wast he, who at mid-watch came, too rash With fearO thou, if that martyr-gash Fell on thee coming to take thine own, And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne XVII. "Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. XVIII. "We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how At least we withstand Barabbas now! Was our outrage sore? To have called these But the worst we spared, Christians, had we dared! Let defiance to them pay mistrust of thee, XIX. "By the torture, prolonged from age to age, By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, XX. We boast our proof that at least the Jew But we fought them in it, God our aid! A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band, PROTUS. Among these latter busts we count by scores, As those were all the little locks could bear. Now read here. "Protus ends a period Of empery beginning with a god; Born in the porphyry chamber at Byzant, And if he quickened breath there, 't would like fire To pacify the world when it should see. The captains ranged before him, one, his hand * Pope Gregory XVI. abolished this bad business of the Sermon. R. B. |