O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for

shame!

O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name! Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves,

And his tender compassion of prisons and graves!

There they stand, the hired stabbers, the bloodstains yet fresh,

That splashed like red wine from the vintage of flesh,

Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack;

But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords,

And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words!

Off with hats, down with knees, shout your vivas like mad!

Here's the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad, From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the

quick,

Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick,
Who the rôle of the priest and the soldier unites,
And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights!

Is this Pio Nono the gracious, for whom
We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome;

With whose advent we dreamed the new era began When the priest should be human, the monk be a man?

Ah, the wolf's with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl,

When freedom we trust to the crozier and cowl!

Stand aside, men of Rome! Here's a hangmanfaced Swiss

(A blessing for him surely can't go amiss)

Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss. Short shrift will suffice him, he's blest beyond

doubt;

But there's blood on his hands which would scarcely wash out,

Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout!

Make way for the next! Here's another sweet son!

What's this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done? He did, whispers rumor (its truth God forbid!), At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did.

And the mothers?-Don't name them!-these humors of war

They who keep him in service must pardon him

for.

Hist! here's the arch-knave in a cardinal's hat, With the heart of a wolf and the stealth of a cat (As if Judas and Herod together were rolled),

Who keeps, all as one, the Pope's conscience and

gold,

Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence,

And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence!

Who doubts Antonelli? Have miracles ceased When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest? When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical

board,

The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its

sword,

When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his

head,

And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbour instead!

There! the bells jow and jangle the same blessed

way

That they did when they rang for Bartholomew's

day.

Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor

boys,

Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise. Te Deum laudamus!-All round without stint The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in't!

And now for the blessing! Of little account,
You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount.
Its giver was landless, his raiment was poor,

No jewelled tiara his fishermen wore;

No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home,
No Swiss guards! We order things better at
Rome.

So bless us the strong hand, and curse us the weak;
Let Austria's vulture have food for her beak;
Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again,
With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and
chain;

Put reason and justice and truth under ban;
For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

ASSISI

THE SERMON OF ST. FRANCIS

UP soared the lark into the air,
A shaft of song, a winged prayer,
As if a soul, released from pain,
Were flying back to heaven again.

St. Francis heard; it was to him
An emblem of the Seraphim;
The upward motion of the fire,
The light, the heat, the heart's desire.

Around Assisi's convent gate

The birds, God's poor who cannot wait,
From moor and mere and darksome wood
Came flocking for their dole of food.

"O brother birds," St. Francis said,
"Ye come to me and ask for bread,
But not with bread alone to-day
Shall ye be fed and sent away.

"Ye shall be fed, ye happy birds,

With manna of celestial words;

Not mine, though mine they seem to be,

Not mine, though they be spoken through me.