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 proffer'd hand half way When courteous POET. (aside) (Rome's smooth go-between!) FRIEND. Laments the advice that sour❜d a milky queen— (For "bloody" all enlighten'd men confess An antiquated error of the press :) Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, With actual cautery staunch'd the Church's wounds! And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur What think you now? Boots it with spear and POET. What think I now? Ev'n what I thought be fore; What boasts tho' may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way. So much for you, my Friend! who own a And would not leave your mother in the lurch! Disclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food: And who shall blame him that he purs applause, Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, LINES SUGGESTED BY THE LAST WORDS OF BERENGA RIUS, OB. ANNO DOM. 1088. No more 'twixt conscience staggering and the Pope Soon shall I now before my God appear, By him to be acquitted, as I hope; By him to be condemned, as I fear.— REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE. Lynx amid moles! had I stood by thy bed, All are not strong alike through storms to steer 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 start, Fear haply told thee, was a learned strife, 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, Judge him who won them when he stood alone, And proudly talk of recreant BerengareO first the age, and then the man compare! That age how dark! congenial minds how rare! No host of friends with kindred zeal did burn! No throbbing hearts awaited his return! Prostrate alike when prince and peasant fell, He only disenchanted from the spell, 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 Hath lit each dew-drop on our trimmer lawn! Yet not for this, if wise, shall we decry The spots and struggles of the timid dawn; Lest so we tempt th' approaching noon to scorn The mists and painted vapours of our morn. NOT AT HOME. THAT Jealousy may rule a mind She has a strange cast in her ee, Ask for her and she'll be denied :- And can't just then be seen. |