Mark well how Glory steeps her sons in gloom!
You have no seat to sit on, save the stool:
Yet were you active from your mother s womb.
The knave who serves hath orders strict and cool
To list no word you utter, give you naughty
Scarcely to ope the door; such is their rule.
These toys hath Glory for her nursling wrought!
No paper, pens, ink, fire, or tools of steel,
To exercise the quick brain's teeming thought.
Alack that I so little can reveal!
Fancy one hundred for each separate ill:
Full space and place I've left for prison weal!
But now my former purpose to fulfil,
And sing the dungeon's praise with honour due—
For this angelic tongues were scant of skill.
Here never languish honest men and true,
Except by placemen's fraud, misgovernment,
Jealousies, anger, or some spiteful crew.
To tell the truth whereon my mind is bent,
Here man knows God, nor ever stints to pray,
Feeling his soul with hell's fierce anguish rent.
Let one be famed as bad as mortal may,
Send him in jail two sorry years to pine,
He '11 come forth holy, wise, beloved alway.
Here soul, flesh, clothes their substance gross refine;
Each bulky lout grows light like gossamere;
Celestial thrones before purged eyeballs shine.
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