 | 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition |  |
SOPS FOR CERBERUS.
Old Cerberus has wakened from his sleep
In darkness deep,
He stretches giant limbs, and opens jaws
That menace laws,
And mocks at measures only passed to please
His iron ease—
The scraps and bones and futile fancy sops,
In dribbling drops
Of suffrage, ballot, education's cry,
To pacify
His appetite, that thirsts (a raging flood)
For blood.
In darkness deep,
He stretches giant limbs, and opens jaws
That menace laws,
And mocks at measures only passed to please
His iron ease—
The scraps and bones and futile fancy sops,
In dribbling drops
Of suffrage, ballot, education's cry,
To pacify
His appetite, that thirsts (a raging flood)
For blood.
He feels returning to his veins fresh life
For vaster strife,
Till, as he shakes his mighty frame, the towers
And golden bowers
Of painted wantons, sickening, reel and rock
With earthquake shock;
At every step each crazy bench and board,
With shameless hoard,
Trembles and turns to some escaping rift
Of shabbier shift,
As though to stay, with goose's quill or starch,
His march.
For vaster strife,
Till, as he shakes his mighty frame, the towers
And golden bowers
Of painted wantons, sickening, reel and rock
With earthquake shock;
At every step each crazy bench and board,
With shameless hoard,
Trembles and turns to some escaping rift
Of shabbier shift,
As though to stay, with goose's quill or starch,
His march.
He sharpens now, as nearer judgment hangs,
His dreadful fangs,
On the grim whetstone of a tottering State,
That offers plate
Thrice-licked already by its greedy crew,
Gentile and Jew—
On false foundations crumbling to their doom,
Tartarean gloom,
Where perjured placemen and the fools of fraud,
Or purple bawd,
Lie till peals forth for England's headless Rump,
God's trump.
His dreadful fangs,
On the grim whetstone of a tottering State,
That offers plate
Thrice-licked already by its greedy crew,
Gentile and Jew—
765
Tartarean gloom,
Where perjured placemen and the fools of fraud,
Or purple bawd,
Lie till peals forth for England's headless Rump,
God's trump.
At every hissing breath or hungry growl,
Beneath his cowl
The hireling priest turns pale, and seeks for flight
From coming night;
Stewards and guardians, who betray their trust
In Judas lust,
Arise and call on Heaven, and find in earth
Nothing but dearth,
And not one refuge from the avenging slave,
Except the grave;
For Cerberus has waked, and knows his power
And hour.
Beneath his cowl
The hireling priest turns pale, and seeks for flight
From coming night;
Stewards and guardians, who betray their trust
In Judas lust,
Arise and call on Heaven, and find in earth
Nothing but dearth,
And not one refuge from the avenging slave,
Except the grave;
For Cerberus has waked, and knows his power
And hour.
| 'Twixt Kiss and Lip or Under the Sword. By the author of "Women Must Weep," [i.e. F. W. O. Ward] Third edition | |