105
A rapid gathering of the fathers
Conscripti, to discourse of prices
And victualling, perhaps sans scrip-ti rather’s
The fitter term for whom devices
For floating loans and filling larders,
Adjusting deities’ and digestions’
Claims and the like are now the questions
Sans scrip or scrap to pay the bakers’
And butchers’ monthly tendered bills;
Th’ apothecary medicine-makers’
If e’er his Holiness took pills;
Those heavier ones to undertakers
When Cardinals, from this world’s ills,
And debts unpaid, in hats and pink hose,
Float up to heaven’s gate like flamingoes.
Some would accept the project Pat Egan,
The New York stock jobber, suggested:—
To form a company: “The Vatican
And Pope Co., Limited.” If blessed, it
Should tap the faithful. “I’ll do what I can,’
He cried, “and when their gold’s invested,
Make me sole Trustee and I’ll chance it,
For Church and faith’s sake and finance it.”
Some who were disinclined to swallow
The baits of dividends and bonuses
Would purge the Petrine ark, now hollow,
By throwing overboard the Jonases.
Their personal foes, and some the Apollo
Would sacrifice to these new onuses,
And smuggle into France the Parian
Chef-d’œuvre world-famed as Belviderian.
