 | Flower o' the thorn |  |
QUEM DEUS VULT PERDERE.
YE, whom we blush for Englishmen to ownWho love the land that Shakspeare prized so dear,
Ye misbegotten moderns, on whose ear
The tale of England's glories trumpet-blown
Falls as an old wives' fable, ye who drone
Here where your fathers battled, hope nor fear
Having of aught that touches not your sheer
Brute sense, nor love but of your ease alone,
If, on your frenzy following to the end,
You hearken not to counsel and amend,
Nor in old Rome nor new France had the law
Such full approof as it shall find in you,
Which lives for ever in the Latin saw,
“God first dementeth whom He would undo.”
| Flower o' the thorn | |