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Rome thus was left to fawn and wheedle
Cut-throat sedition—now her rival
With cringing promises to shrive all
The bloodiest knives for just a little
Of the blood-money, just a trifle,
She even hinted at conniving
Besides the mere official shriving:
A great come-down for men of soul,
Who held the knife to hold the bowl.
Still not a wholly uncongenial
Position, if a trifle menial
For the descendants of the chosen
Who fried apostates in their hosen:
Indeed peat hovels in a blaze
With roasting caretakers inside ’em,
And carded pigs a-squeal beside ’em,
With other tender patriot ways,
Sweetly though sadly (see Moore’s lays)
Recalled the light of other days,
And reconciled red hats and capes
To being red ruin’s Jack-a-napes.
But e’en this servile dagger licking
To catch the drops that from them trickled
Could not with here and there a picking
Fillup the gap they scarcely tickled.
It was not moonlighting that solely
Drew tight the purse-strings of the lowly
To Rome’s imperious needs. Th’ Iberian
Is not averse to fob or fibbing
Himself, but proves a deuced leary ’un
To any who’d his wiles be cribbing.
Nothing so much provokes high-flying
