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Ballads for the Times

(Now first collected,) Geraldine, A Modern Pyramid, Bartenus, A Thousand Lines, and other poems. By Martin F. Tupper. A new Edition, enlarged and revised
Tupper, Martin Farquhar (1810-1889)

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Ballads for the Times, &c. &c.
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A Thousand Lines, etc.
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Hartenus, etc.
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[subsection]
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SOME EARLY POEMS.
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CONTRASTED SONNETS.
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Six American Ballads.

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Down with Foreign Priestcraft.—1851.

Christian England! where so long
Freedom's trumpet, clear and strong,
Still has stirr'd the patriot song—
Down with foreign priestcraft!
England! Truth's own island-nest,
Pure Religion's happy rest,
Ever shall thy sons protest
Down with foreign priestcraft!
436

What! shall these Italian knaves
Dream again to make us slaves
From our cradles to our graves
With their foreign priestcraft?
Out on every false pretence!
Common right and common sense
Shout against such insolence
Down with foreign priestcraft!
Aye,—insidious fawning foe,
Little as you thought it so,
England's wrath is all aglow,
Scorning foreign priestcraft—
Take our Jesuits, if you will,
England's heart rejects their ill,
And her mouth is thundering still,
Down with foreign priestcraft!
Hark! in ancient warmth and worth,
East and west and south and north,
Flies the loyal spirit forth,
Loathing foreign priestcraft;
Evermore with Rome to cope,
We will bate nor heart nor hope,
But our shout shall stun the Pope,
Down with foreign priestcraft!
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