XIX ABUSE OF MONASTIC POWER 1821 1822 AND what is Penance with her knotted thong; Mortification with the shirt of hair, Wan cheek, and knees indurated with prayer, If cloistered Avarice scruple not to wrong And rob the people of his daily care, Scorning that world whose blindness makes her strong? Inversion strange! that, unto One who lives XX MONASTIC VOLUPTUOUSNESS YET more, 1821 1822 round many a Convent's blazing fire Unhallowed threads of revelry are spun; There Venus sits disguisèd like a Nun, - To stay the precious waste. Through every brain Spreads high conceits to madding Fancy dear, Till the arched roof, with resolute abuse Of its grave echoes, swells a choral strain, Whose votive burthen is -"OUR KINGDOM'S HERE!" XXI DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES 1821 1822 THREATS Come which no submission may assuage, The tapers shall be quenched, the belfries mute, The owl of evening and the woodland fox To stoop her head before these desperate shocks THE lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek With equal wrath the steps of strong and weak) Suffused with blushes of celestial hue, While through the Convent's gate to open view Those watery glories, on the stormy brine XXIII CONTINUED 1821 1822 YET many a Novice of the cloistral shade, Like ships before whose keels, full long embayed Their liquid world, for bold discovery, In all her quarters temptingly displayed! Hope guides the young; but when the old must pass The threshold, whither shall they turn to find The hospitality the alms (alas! Alms may be needed) which that House bestowed? Can they, in faith and worship, train the mind |