Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/110

 Rome thus was left to fawn and wheedle

Cut-throat sedition—now her rival

With cringing promises to shrive all

The bloodiest knives for just a little

Of the blood-money, just a trifle,

She even hinted at conniving

Besides the mere official shriving:

A great come-down for men of soul,

Who held the knife to hold the bowl.

Still not a wholly uncongenial

Position, if a trifle menial

For the descendants of the chosen

Who fried apostates in their hosen:

Indeed peat hovels in a blaze

With roasting caretakers inside ’em,

And carded pigs a-squeal beside ’em,

With other tender patriot ways,

Sweetly though sadly (see Moore’s lays)

Recalled the light of other days,

And reconciled red hats and capes

To being red ruin’s Jack-a-napes.

But e’en this servile dagger licking

To catch the drops that from them trickled

Could not with here and there a picking

Fillup the gap they scarcely tickled.

It was not moonlighting that solely

Drew tight the purse-strings of the lowly

To Rome’s imperious needs. Th’ Iberian

Is not averse to fob or fibbing

Himself, but proves a deuced leary ’un

To any who’d his wiles be cribbing.

Nothing so much provokes high-flying