VIII..

ARCHBISHOP CHICHELY TO HENRY V.

"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? "Let both meet only on thy royal shield!

"Go forth, great King! claim what thy birth bestows; 66 Conquer the Gallic Lily which thy foes

"Dare to usurp;

Thus spake

"And Heaven will crown the right.". -The mitred Sire and lo! a Fleet, for Gaul addrest, Ploughs her bold course across the wondering seas; For, sooth to say, ambition, in the breast

Of youthful Heroes, is no sullen fire,

But one that leaps to meet the fanning breeze.

IX.

-

WARS OF YORK AND LANCASTER.

THUS is the storm abated by the craft

Of a shrewd Counsellor, eager to protect

The Church, whose power hath recently been checked, Whose monstrous riches threatened.

So the shaft

Of victory mounts high, and blood is quaffed

In fields that rival Cressy and Poictiers
Pride to be washed away by bitter tears!
For deep as hell itself, the avenging draught
Of civil slaughter. Yet, while Temporal power
Is by these shocks exhausted, Spiritual truth
Maintains the else endangered gift of life;
Proceeds from infancy to lusty youth;
And, under cover of this woeful strife,

Gathers unblighted strength from hour to hour.

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 ;

Forthwith, that ancient Voice which Streams can hear,
Thus speaks (that Voice which walks upon the wind,
Though seldom heard by busy human kind,)
"As thou these ashes, little Brook! wilt bear
"Into the Avon, Avon to the tide

"Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
"Into main Ocean they, this Deed accurst

“An emblem yields to friends and enemies

"How the bold Teacher's Doctrine, sanctified

66

By Truth, shall spread throughout the world dispersed.

XI.

CORRUPTIONS OF THE HIGHER CLERGY.

"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 titlesplease; "Who will be served by others on their knees, "Yet will yourselves to God no service pay; "Pastors who neither take nor point the way "To Heaven; for either lost in vanities "Ye have no skill to teach, or if ye know "And speak the word- Alas! of fearful things 'Tis the most fearful when the People's eye Abuse hath cleared from vain imaginings; And taught the general voice to prophesy Of Justice armed, and Pride to be laid low.

XII.

-

ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER.

AND what is Penance with her knotted thong,
Mortification with the shirt of hair,

Wan cheek, and knees indúrated with prayer,
Vigils, and fastings rigorous as long,
If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong
The pious, humble, useful Secular,

And rob the People of his daily care,

Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong?
Inversion strange! that unto One who lives
For self, and struggles with himself alone,
The amplest share of heavenly favour gives;
That to a Monk allots, in the esteem
Of God and Man, place higher than to him
Who on the good of others builds his own!

XIII.

YET more,

MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS.

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,
Pours out his choicest beverage high and higher
Sparkling, until it cannot choose but run
Over the bowl, whose silver lip hath won
An instant kiss of masterful desire

To stay the precious waste. Through every brain
The domination of the sprightly juice

Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear,
Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse

Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain,

Whose votive burthen is "OUR KINGDOM'S HERE!"

XIV..

DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES.

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,
The warbling wren shall find a leafy cage;
The gadding bramble hang her purple fruit;
And the green lizard and the gilded newt
Lead unmolested lives, and die of age.' *
The owl of evening and the woodland fox
For their abode the shrines of Waltham choose:
Proud Glastonbury can no more refuse

To stoop her head before these desperate shocks -
She whose high pomp displaced, as story tells,
Arimathean Joseph's wattled cells.

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 her cheek
Suffused with blushes of celestial hue,
While through the Convent gate to open view
Softly she glides, another home to seek.
Not Iris, issuing from her cloudy shrine,
An Apparition more divinely bright!
Not more attractive to the dazzled sight
Those watery glories, on the stormy brine

Poured forth, while summer suns at distance shine,
And the green vales lie hushed in sober light!

*See note, p. 199.

YET some, Noviciates of the cloistral shade,
Or chained by vows, with undissembled glee
The warrant hail exulting to be free;
Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed
In polar ice, propitious winds have made
Unlooked-for outlet to an open sea,

Their liquid world, for bold discovery,

In all her quarters temptingly displayed!

Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass
The threshold, whither shall they turn to find
The hospitality - the alms (alas!

Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed?
Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind
To keep this new and questionable road?

XVII. SAINTS.

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,

The fond heart proffered it the servile heart;
And therefore are ye summoned to depart,

Michael, and thou, St. George, whose flaming brand
The Dragon quelled; and valiant Margaret
Whose rival sword a like Opponent slew:
And rapt Cecilia, seraph-haunted Queen
Of harmony; and weeping Magdalene,
Who in the penitential desert met

Gales sweet as those that over Eden blew !