Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Sancti Dominici Pallium. A Dialogue between Poet and Friend

POET I note the moods and feelings men betray, And heed them more than aught they do or say; The lingering ghosts of many a secret deed Still-born or haply strangled in its birth; These best reveal the smooth man's inward creed! These mark the spot where lies the treasure—Worth!        &nbspMilner, made up of impudence and trick, With cloven tongue prepared to hiss and lick, Rome's Brazen Serpent—boldly dares discuss The roasting of thy heart, O brave John Huss! And with grim triumph and a truculent glee Absolves anew the Pope-wrought perfidy, That made an empire's plighted faith a lie, And fix'd a broad stare on the Devil's eye— (Pleas'd with the guilt, yet envy-stung at heart To stand outmaster'd in his own black art!) Yet Milner— FRIEND        &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbsp       &nbspEnough of Milner! we're agreed, Who now defends would then have done the deed. But who not feels persuasion's gentle sway, Who but must meet the proffered hand half way When courteous Butler— POET (aside) (Rome's smooth go-between!) FRIEND        &nbspLaments the advice that soured a milky queen— (For 'bloody' all enlightened men confess An antiquated error of the press:) Who rapt by zeal beyond her sex's bounds, With actual cautery staunched the Church's wounds! And tho' he deems, that with too broad a blur We damn the French and Irish massacre, Yet blames them both—and thinks the Pope might err! What think you now? Boots it with spear and shield Against such gentle foes to take the field Whose beckoning hands the mild Caduceus wield? POET        &nbspWhat think I now? Even what I thought before;— What Milner boasts though Butler may deplore, Still I repeat, words lead me not astray When the shown feeling points a different way. Smooth Butler can say grace at slander's feast, And bless each haut-gout cook'd by monk or priest; Leaves the full lie on Milner's gong to swell, Content with half-truths that do just as well; But duly decks his mitred comrade's flanks, And with him shares the Irish nation's thanks!        &nbspSo much for you, my friend! who own a Church, And would not leave your mother in the lurch! But when a Liberal asks me what I think— Scared by the blood and soot of Cobbett's ink, And Jeffrey's glairy phlegm and Connor's foam, In search of some safe parable I roam— An emblem sometimes may comprise a tome!        &nbspDisclaimant of his uncaught grandsire's mood, I see a tiger lapping kitten's food: And who shall blame him that he purs applause, When brother Brindle pleads the good old cause; And frisks his pretty tail, and half unsheathes his claws! Yet not the less, for modern lights unapt, I trust the bolts and cross-bars of the laws More than the Protestant milk all newly lapt, Impearling a tame wild-cat's whisker'd jaws!