Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79.
From Perugia
By John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)T
Flaming out in their violet, yellow, and red;
And behind go the lackeys in crimson and buff,
And the chamberlains gorgeous in velvet and ruff;
Next, in red-legged pomp, come the cardinals forth,
Each a lord of the church and a prince of the earth.
Lo! the Swiss of the Church from Perugia come,—
The militant angels, whose sabres drive home
To the hearts of the malcontents, cursed and abhorred,
The good Father’s missives, and “Thus saith the Lord!”
And lend to his logic the point of the sword!
O’er dark Thrasymenus, dishevelled and torn!
O fathers, who pluck at your gray beards for shame!
O mothers, struck dumb by a woe without name!
Well ye know how the Holy Church hireling behaves,
And his tender compassion of prisons and graves!
That splashed like red wine from the vintage of flesh,—
Grim instruments, careless as pincers and rack
How the joints tear apart, and the strained sinews crack;
But the hate that glares on them is sharp as their swords,
And the sneer and the scowl print the air with fierce words!
Here ’s the Pope in his holiday righteousness clad,
From shorn crown to toe-nail, kiss-worn to the quick,
Of sainthood in purple the pattern and pick,
Who the rôle of the priest and the soldier unites,
And, praying like Aaron, like Joshua fights!
We sang our hosannas and lighted all Rome;
With whose advent we dreamed the new era began
When the priest should be human, the monk be a man?
Ah, the wolf’s with the sheep, and the fox with the fowl,
When freedom we trust to the crozier and cowl!
(A blessing for him surely can’t go amiss)
Would kneel down the sanctified slipper to kiss.
Short shrift will suffice him,—he ’s blest beyond doubt;
But there ’s blood on his hands which would scarcely wash out,
Though Peter himself held the baptismal spout!
What ’s this mastiff-jawed rascal in epaulets done?
He did, whispers rumor, (its truth God forbid!)
At Perugia what Herod at Bethlehem did.
And the mothers?—Don’t name them!—these humors of war
They who keep him in service must pardon him for.
With the heart of a wolf and the stealth of a cat
(As if Judas and Herod together were rolled),
Who keeps, all as one, the Pope’s conscience and gold,
Mounts guard on the altar, and pilfers from thence,
And flatters St. Peter while stealing his pence!
When robbers say mass, and Barabbas is priest?
When the Church eats and drinks, at its mystical board,
The true flesh and blood carved and shed by its sword,
When its martyr, unsinged, claps the crown on his head,
And roasts, as his proxy, his neighbor instead!
That they did when they rang for Bartholomew’s day.
Hark! the tallow-faced monsters, nor women nor boys,
Vex the air with a shrill, sexless horror of noise.
Te Deum laudamus!—All round without stint
The incense-pot swings with a taint of blood in ’t!
You know, is the old one they heard on the Mount.
Its giver was landless, his raiment was poor,
No jewelled tiara his fishermen wore;
No incense, no lackeys, no riches, no home,
No Swiss guards!—We order things better at Rome.
Let Austria’s vulture have food for her beak;
Let the wolf-whelp of Naples play Bomba again,
With his death-cap of silence, and halter, and chain;
Put reason and justice and truth under ban;
For the sin unforgiven is freedom for man!