A brand-new story now compels my song,

To make the twentieth canto bright and clear,

Whence all the world shall plainly learn ere long

Some saints are not such saints as they appear;

For cowls, gray, blue or black, a motley throng,

With dangling breviaries and brows severe,

And often naming on the lips our Lord,

While the heart's cold, no sanctity afford.

A cupping-glass upon your skull, a leech,

A blister, or a tonsure, are all one;

It will not help you though you gird your breech

With several braces or with one alone;

Or wear straight vestments, long and lank, that reach

Like coachmen's great-coats to your heels, or drone

Gibberish and Paternosters:—Sainthood needs

More than fair words for foul and filthy deeds.

The hands are where true charity begins;

Not the mouth, face, or clothes: be mild, humane,

Reticent, sorry for your neighbor's sins,

Pitiful to his suffering and his pain:

Christians need wear no masks; who wears them, wins

A backway to the fold, and brings it bane,

Scaling the wall by craft—a traitor he,

A thief and knave, who deals in subtlety.

These be that tribe of rogues and rascals whom

Our good Lord hates, the race on whom alone

In wrath he uttered that tremendous doom,

Though every other fault he could condone:

Ye whited sepulchers, ye living tomb,

Fire on the surface, in the soul a stone!

Why will ye wash the outside of the platter?

First cleanse your heart—that is the graver matter!

'Tis said by some that by and by the good

Pope and his Prelates will reform their ways:

I tell you that a turnip has no blood,

Nor sick folk health, nor can you hope to raise

Syrup from vinegar to sauce your food:

The Church will be reformed when summer days

Come without gad-flies, when a butcher's store

Has neither bones nor dogs about the door.

Sanga, this lewd age is an age of lead,

Whence Truth is banished both in deed and word:

You're called a fool, poor-spirited, ill-bred,

If you but name S. Peter and our Lord:

Where'er you walk, where'er you turn your head,

Some rascal hypocrite, with scowl abhorred,

Snarls twixt his teeth "Freethinker! Lutheran!"—

And Lutheran means, you know, good Christian.

Those grasping priests have thrown a net full wide:

With bells and anthems, altar-cloth and cope,

They lift their well-decked shrines on every side,

Bent upon life eternal—sorry hope!

This wooden image is the sailor's pride,

That plastered face the soldier's; piss-pots slope

In rows to Cosmo and S. Damian;

The pox belong to stout Sebastian.

Baron S. Anthony hides fire in heart,

Thoughts of the donkey and the swine in head;

Whence comes it that all monks in every part

Stuff paunch and wallet with flesh, wine, and bread:

Yon Abbot, like Silenus, fills a cart;

Yon Cardinal's a Bacchus overfed;

The Pope through Europe sells, a second Mars,

Bulls and indulgences to feed his wars.

The Word of God, aroused from its long trance,

Runs like live fire abroad through Germany;

The work continues, as the days advance,

Unmasking that close-cloaked iniquity,

Which with a false and fraudulent countenance

So long imposed on France, Spain, Italy:

Now by the grace of God we've learned in sooth

What mean the words Church, Charity, Hope, Truth.

O the great goodness of our heavenly Sire!

Behold, his Son once more appears on high,

Treads under foot the proud rebellious ire

Of faithless Churchmen, who by threat and lie

Strove to conceal the Love that did inspire

The mighty Maker of earth, sea, and sky,

What time he served, and bore our flesh, and trod

With blood the path that leads man back to God.

None speaks in this lost land of his pure blood,

That sinless blood of Christ, both God and man,

Which quelled the serpent's stiff and venomous brood,

The powers malign that reigned where Lethe ran!

In his fair bleeding limbs he slew the lewd

Old Adam from whose sin our woes began,

Appeased his Father's wrath, and on the door

Of impious Hell set bars for evermore.

This is that seed thrice holy and thrice blest,

Promised to our first parents, which doth bring

Unto the stairs of heaven our hope oppressed!

This is that puissant and victorious king,

Whose foot treads man's misjudgment on the crest!

This is that calm clear light, whose sunbeams fling

Shade on the souls and darkness o'er the eyes

Of fools in this world's knowledge vainly wise!

O Christians, with the hearts of Hebrews! Ye

Who make a mortal man your chief and head,

Of these new Pharisees first Pharisee!

Your soaring and immortal pinions spread

For that starred shrine, where, through eternity,

The Lamb of God is Pope, whose heart once bled

That men, blind men, from yon pure font on high

Might seek indulgence full and free for aye!

Yet that cooked crayfish hath the face to pray,

Kneeling in chapel opposite that crow,

That Antichrist, upon some holy day—

"Thou art our sail, our rudder!"—when we know

The simple truth requires that he should say

"Thou art the God of ruin and of woe,

Father of infinite hypocrisies,

Of evil customs and all heresies!"—

O Sanga, for our lord Verona's sake,

Put by your Virgil, lay Lucretius down,

Ovid, and him in whom such joy you take,

Tully, of Latin eloquence the crown!

With arms out-spread, our heart's arms, let us make

To Him petition, who, without our own

Merit or diligence or works, can place

Our souls in heaven, made worthy by his grace!

And prithee see that Molza is aware,

And Navagero, and Flaminio too,

That here far other things should be our care

Than Janus, Flora, Thetis, and the crew

Of Homer's gods, who paint their page so fair!

Here we experience the false and true;

Here find that Sun, which shows, without, within,

That man by nature is compact of sin.

O good Fregoso, who hast shut thine ear

To all those siren songs of Poesy,

Abiding by the mirror keen and clear,

In joyance of divine Philosophy

Both Testaments, Old, New, to thee are dear!

Thou hast outworn that ancient fantasy

Which led thee once with Fondulo to call

Plato the link twixt Peter and S. Paul!—

But now Gradasso calls me; I am bid

Back to the follies of my Paladins—

etc., etc.