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proper scorn

When we turn lies-called gods forsoothTo lies' fit use, now Christ is born.

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Drawing and coloring are Truth.

LIII.

Think you I honor lies so much As scruple to parade the charms Of Leda--Titian, every touch

Because the thing within her arms Means Jupiter who had the praise And prayer of a benighted world? Benighted I too, if, in days

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Of light, I kept the canvas furled!'

LIV.

So ending, with some easy gibe.

What power has logic! I, at once,

Acknowledged error in our tribe,

So squeamish that, when friends ensconce

A pretty picture in its niche

To do us honor, deck our graves,

We fret and fume and have an itch

To strangle folk-ungrateful knaves!

LV.

"No, sir! Be sure that-what's its style, Your picture?-shall possess ungrudged A place among my rank and file

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Of Ledas-and what not-be judged
Just as a picture !—and (because

I fear me much I scarce have bought
A Titian) Master Buti's flaws

Found there, will have the laugh flaws ought!"

LVI.

So, with a scowl, it darkens door-
This bulk-no longer! Buti makes
Prompt glad re-entry; there's a score
Of oaths, as the good Farmer wakes
From what must needs have been a trance,
Or he had struck (he swears) to ground
The bold bad mouth that dared advance
Such doctrine the reverse of sound.

LVII.

Was magic here? Most like! For, since,
Somehow our city's faith grows still
More and more lukewarm, and our Prince
Or loses heart or wants the will

To check increase of cold.

'Tis "Live

And let live! Languidly repress

The Dissident! In short,-contrive

Christians must bear with Jews: no less!"

LVIII.

The end seems, any Israelite

Wants any picture,- pishes, poohs,
Purchases, hangs it full in sight

In any chamber he may choose!

In Christ's crown, one more thorn we rue!
In Mary's bosom, one more sword!

No, boy, you must not pelt a Jew!

O Lord, how long? How long, O Lord?

SOLILOQUY OF THE SPANISH CLOISTER.

I.

GR-R-R-there go, my heart's abhorrence!
Water your damned flower-pots, do!
If hate killed men, Brother Lawrence,
God's blood, would not mine kill you!
What? your myrtle-bush wants trimming?
Oh, that rose has prior claims--

Needs its leaden vase filled brimming?
Hell dry you up with its flames!

II.

At the meal we sit together:

Salve tibi! I must hear

Wise talk of the kind of weather,
Sort of season, time of year :
Not a plenteous cork-crop: scarcely
Dare we hope oak-galls, I doubt:
What's the Latin name for "parsley"?
What's the Greek name of Swine's snout?

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Whew! We'll have our platter burnished,
Laid with care on our own shelf!
With a fire-new spoon we're furnished,
And a goblet for ourself,

Rinsed like something sacrificial

Ere 'tis fit to touch our chaps

Marked with L. for our initial!
(He-he! There his lily snaps!)

IV.

Saint, forsooth! While brown Dolores
Squats outside the Convent bank
With Sanchicha, telling stories,

Steeping tresses in the tank,

Blue-black, lustrous, thick like horsehairs,

-Can't I see his dead eye glow,

Bright as 'twere a Barbary corsair's? (That is, if he'd let it show!)

V.

When he finishes refection,
Knife and fork he never lays
Cross-wise, to my recollection,
As do I, in Jesu's praise.
I the Trinity illustrate,

Drinking watered orange-pulp-
In three sips the Arian frustrate;
While he drains his at one gulp.

VI.

Oh, those melons! If he's able
We're to have a feast! so nice!
One goes to the Abbot's table,
All of us get each a slice.
How go on your flowers?

None double?

Not one fruit-sort can you spy?

Strange! And I, too, at such trouble
Keep them close-nipped on the sly!

VII.

There's a great text in Galatians,
Once you trip on it, entails
Twenty-nine distinct damnations,
One sure, if another fails:
If I trip him just a-dying,

Sure of heaven as sure can be,
Spin him round and send him flying
Off to hell, a Manichee?

VIII.

Or, my scrofulous French novel
On gray paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
If I double down its pages

At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in't?

IX.

Or, there's Satan !-one might venture
Pledge one's soul to him, yet leave

Such a flaw in the indenture

As he'd miss till, past retrieve,

Blasted lay that rose-acacia

We're so proud of! Hy,Zy, Hine 'St, there's Vespers! Plena gratia Ave Virgo! Gr-r-r-you swine!

THE HERETIC'S TRAGEDY.

A MIDDLE-AGE INTERLUDE.

...

A CONCEIT OF MASTER

ROSA MUNDI; SEU, FULCITE ME FLORIBUS.
GYSBRECHT, CANON-REGULAR OF SAINT JODOCUS-BY-THE-BAR,
YPRES CITY. CANTIQUE, Virgilius. AND HATH OFTEN BEEN
GAVISUS ERAM, Jesisdes.

SUNG AT HOCK-TIDE AND FESTIVALS.

(It would seem to be a glimpse from the burning of Jacques du Bourg-Molay, at Paris, A. D. 1314; as distorted by the refraction from Flemish brain to brain, during the course of a couple of centuries.)

I.

PREADMONISHETH THE ABBOT DEODAET.

THE Lord, we look to once for all,

Is the Lord, we should look at, all at once:

He knows not to vary, saith St. Paul,

Nor the shadow of turning, for the nonce.

See him no other than as he is!

Give both the infinitudes their due

Infinite mercy, but, I wis,

As infinite a justice too.

[Organ: plagal-cadence.

As infinite a justice too.

II.

ONE SINGETH.

John, Master of the Temple of God,
Falling to sin the Unknown Sin,
What he bought of Emperor Aldabrod,
He sold it to Sultan Saladin :

Till caught by Pope Clement, a-buzzing there,
Hornet-prince of the mad wasps' hive,
And clipt of his wings in Paris square,
They bring him now to be burned alive.

[And wanteth there grace of lute or clavicithern, ye shall say to confirm him who singeth— We bring John now to be burned alive.

III.

In the midst is a goodly gallows built;
'Twixt fork and fork, a stake is stuck;
But first they set divers tumbrils a-tilt,

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