Page:Two Mock Epics (Hanuman and Tantum Religio), Lyrics, Post Meridian Verse, The Turret Captain's Toast and other Verses.pdf/87

 Rawboned, he onward strode with grace

Behind, and reached the market place.

Thus by the grace of gin and vat, sir,

Lo! Blasio master of the piazza:

Planted the tub evangelistic,

Sir Blasio-Cyclops-Calvinistic

High o’er the hoops upreared tremendous,

Ready to hell or heaven to send us,

And pouring forth, without palaver,

Doctrinal scoria, flames and lava,

Gape people, pavements, walls aghast

As Blasio’s rhetoric round is cast.

Blasting and withering in Saharas

Of eloquence popes, priests, tiaras,

Tats, scarlet, tinsel, mariolatries,

Indulgences, Antichrists, idolatries,

Popes, pope’s toes, tonsures, nuns, worm-eaten

Confessionals, with brass plates beaten

Fine and pierced large for whispered sins

To slip through easily from chins

In lace and powder, rouge and pins;

In fact, his lightnings fulminated

All the frayed, tawdry properties

Of Popery’s puppet-show theatrical;

Laid bare its shams, exposed its lies,

Its frauds to a palanca rated,

Proving how Jesuits’ and priests’ fat tricks all

Who, haltered ’neath its crumbling gable,

Munch mouldy oats in popery’s stable.

Far off, awhile, the folk in awe,

Spellbound at what they heard and saw,

Huddled together and, perplexed,