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Burn down the doors that very minute,
And fire the house with Blasio in it!
This bright suggestion without more question
Is hailed with readiest acquiescence,
And flying heels the fact reveals
As down the slums and ghauts they scuttle
To fetch combustibles and put all
In instant practice, and thus the fact is
After this sudden effervescence,
The street is left as bare and emptied
As was the soul the demons tempted,
When all the seven fiends took to horse
With seven as horsey, lewd, vicious, saucy,
Their seven lewd selves to reinforce,
Within its halls set up their stables,
And on smug virtue turn the tables.
CANTO II.
Bards of the Epic order high
The ways of Heaven to men would try
Like advocates to justify:
Know all of this world and the other,
Primed their defects, your doubts to smother,
And bring you back to faith again.
Mine being the mock heroic vein,
Hoisted few feet o’er pig and plain,
A humbler task affronts my pen
That cautious gropes from line to line
To prove divine as stars that shine
The works of men to one another.
And here a fine occasion offers
