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Squashed flat among those wine-tubs burly,
His shorthand deafened by the hurly.
In fact, they kicked up such a shindy,
That Blasio vanished from the windy.
Vanished, not vanquished: lo! intrepid
Most strong in grace and just a gill
Of something taken through a quill,
He thunders down the stair decrepid,
Close followed by a stalwart Rheatian
Of six-foot-four and contours Grecian,
And eighteen summers:—as from Troy
Through flames Æneas bore his boy
And old Anchises; on his shoulders
Achates through the amazed beholders
Bore, unperturbed by all their hubbub,
Not infant Bacchus but a tub up:
And swinging round the mighty vat
Gave an involuntary scrubbing
To many an umber jowl and hat
That ne’er before had known a tubbing,
For where by two or three the Pope is
Adored, in general light nor soap is.
As on they stalked, unmoved, gigantic,
The mob at first lunged at them, frantic.
So furious dogs at flying trains
Till the swift wheels dash out their brains;
Then with a howl half-disconcerted
Recoiled—the well-plied vat staves hurt it,
Papist with Papist ’gan to jostle
And left a road for the Apostle
Of Calvin to disport his bony
Person along the street way stony:
