Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/117

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107

All that concerns me here to mention’s
The net result, which filled the tills
In Peter’s store with-good: intentions
In shape of promissory bills:
And I.O,U.’s—the accursed. inventions
Of Jewdom’s hell,—and little-else:
The loaves were gone; gone, too, the fishes,
But left their: scales upon the meshes.
And Popery, gathering up the broken
And addling eggs that should be chickens
Into her bosom, pores, some token
Of life to find,-but nothing quickens
Save the grey mould that flings a cloak on
The festering yolk that rots and sickens
All hope’s expansiveness in gloom;
Of withering nights and gathering doom.

CANTO III.

Thus then the Papal deficit.
In strongly marked relief is set
By these last lines: not less the factors,
Among the scattered simian actors
In Europe and the busy sphere o’
The western world, that summed, divided,
Squared and the like, in th’ end provided
A revenue of minus zero
For Popery’s pontifex and clero.
And wrinkled fingers now unclasped
The huge worm-eaten cash-box hasped,
And bound with iron rough and rusty,
And raised the lid and trembling grasped