Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/113

And when in time these contradictions meet,
Then hope to find 'em in a Loyolite:
To whom, though gasping, should I credit give,
I'd think 'twere sin, and damned like unbelief.
⁠Oh for the Swedish law enacted here!
No scarecrow frightens like a priest-gelder,
Hunt them, as beavers are, force them to buy
Their lives with ransom of their lechery.
Or let that wholesome statute be revived,
Which England heretofore from wolves relieved;
Tax every shire instead of them to bring
Each year a certain tale of Jesuits in;
And let their mangled quarters hang the isle
To scare all future vermin from the soil.
Monsters avaunt! may some kind whirlwind sweep
Our land, and drown these locusts in the deep;
Hence ye loathed objects of our scorn and hate,
With all the curses of an injured state;
Go, foul impostors, to some duller soil.
Some easier nation with your cheats beguile;
Where your gross common gulleries may pass,
To slur and top on bubbled consciences;
Where ignorance, and the inquisition rules,
Where the vile herd of poor implicit fools
Are damned contentedly, where they are led
Blindfold to hell, and thank, and pay their guide!
⁠Go, where all your black tribe before are gone,
Follow Chastel, Ravaillac, Clement down,
Your Catesby, Faux, and Garnet, thousands more.
And those who hence have lately raised the score;
Where the grand traitor now, and all the crew
Of his disciples must receive their due;
Where flames, and tortures of eternal date
Must punish you, yet ne'er can expiate:
Learn duller fiends your unknown cruelties,
Such as no wit, but yours, could e'er devise,
No guilt, but yours, deserve; make hell confess
Itself outdone, it's devils damned for less.