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Showing his Holiness at home
In such pomp, pageantry and splendour
As lithographs alone can render.
There was his park so vast and stately,
With immemorial trees embellished,
A gilded litter, where sedately
He lounged and Nature’s beauties relished,
And to escort him to his palace
Troops of retainers, pages, valets.
As many more their lord awaited
Upon the dazzling marble scala,
And bowing lowly reinstated
His godhead in his dining sala,
And brought an ewer of alabaster
To wash the fingers of their master.
He dined off plates of solid gold,
Quaffed choicest wines from cups of amber,
And when the silver doors unfold,
Lo! to escort him to his chamber,
Are other pages, other valets,
With crystal lamps and opal chalice,
And in the chamber ’tis no shock
Of moulded straw on which he tosses,
But whitest fleeces of the flock
And snowiest lawn and silken flosses
Fine as the diadem the spider
Of autumn weaves, and quilts of eider.
Such grave discrepancies, no wonder
Pat’s dark, suspicious nature puzzled.
It brooded o’er his brows in thunder
To think perhaps he had been chuzzled,
And every day brought fresh conviction
