Classic Poem

To the Bishops:

Most reverend lords, the church's joy and wonder,
Whose lives are lightning, and whose doctrine thunder,
The rare effects of both in this are found:
Ye break men's hearts, yet leave their bodies sound,
And from the court (as David did, they say)
Do with your organs fright the devil away.
Awake! for though you think the day's your own,
The cage is open, and the bird is flown,
That bird (whom though your lordships do despise)
May shit in Paul's and pick out Sheldon's eyes.
'Tis he who taught the pulpit and the press
To mask rebellion in a Gospel dress;
He who blew up the coals of England's wrath,
And picked men's pockets by the public faith;
He who the melting sister's bounty tried,
And preached their bodkins into Caesar's side;
That crocodile of state, who wept a flood
When he was maudlin drunk with Charles's blood,
Is by the sisters' gold and brethren's prayer
Become a tenant to the open air,
For some were grieved to see that light expire
That lately helped to set the church on fire,
And when their ghostly father was perplexed,
Could wrest an act, as he had done a text.
Now enter Wild, who merrily lets fly
The fragments of his pulpit drollery.
Though his seditious ballad pleased the rout,
The verses, like the author, had the gout.
Yet he proclaims the show, invites the crew
(The Presbyters have their Jack-puddings too).
He tells you of a beast had lately been
Within the walls of Newgate to be seen,
That with a throat wide as the way to Hell
Could swallows oaths would choke the idol Bel
And burst the dragon, yet he could not swear
Obedience to the king and house of pray'r.
Ingenious Wild, 'tis thy unhappy fate
That Iter Boreale 's out of date;
Love's Tragedy 's forgot, for (oh, disgrace!)
Peters succeeds him in his martyr's place.
Publish the legend of that reverend brother,
And act the one, as thou hast writ the other;
For when St. Hugh did mount the fatal tree,
He left his coat a legacy to thee.
Oh, may the gout no more disturb thy ease,
But Bishop Halter take his diocese,
And now th'art dead in law, though zealots laugh,
Impartial truth shall write this epitaph:
This Presbyterian brat was born and cried,
Spat in his mother's face, and so he died.
He died, yet lives, and the unhappy elf
Divides Beelzebub against himself,
Abuses Calamy, that tail of Smec,
And shoots the prelates through his brother's neck.
Bishops awake! and see a holy cheat:
The enemy sows tares among your wheat.
Do ye not hear the sons of Edom cry,
" Down with the Act of Uniformity!
We will compound and worship God by th' halves:
Take you the temples and give us the calves? "
Thus you behold the schismatic bravadoes —
Wild speaks in squibs, but Calamy granadoes.
Kirk, still these bairns, lest under Tyburn hedge,
The squire of Newgate rock them on a sledge.