Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/108

 From fustian hose enticed by burnings

Of Bengal lights—no more, alas!

Of Lutheran lime and Arian gas,

But still with powder, bang and blaze,

A pale reflex of other days:

A third and last was now appended

Which with the other twain contended

In cutting short the firework mission

And bringing Popery to derision:

Most fatal third, the rise of prices

Out west, had brought things to a crisis

By pumping dry th’ Hibernian sluice

That once was like the widow’s cruse

(The good old soul lived near Mount Carmel)

A never-failing source of palm-oil!

Not that the sudden running dry

Of Patrick’s well can be ascri-

bed, if truth be told, quite altogether

To the tariff—two other forces

Were acting with it,—one, the sources

Themselves to choke and one to ti-

ce, those healing waters otherwhither.

Rome’s harpies teach, though, to be sure,

Themselves—but that’s a sine cure—

Rifle the pockets of the poor

Without compunction, of the sever

Most deadly sins which forfeit heaven:

The worst of all is to defraud

The poor man of his toil’s reward,

“His labours’ fruits” the Church’s phrase is

(The penalty’s the usual blazes)

Which, perhaps, but means, with due reserves,