While deep beyond your monument's proud base,
In black oblivion's kennel, shall be trod
Their execrable names, who, high in power,
And deep in guilt, most ominously shine,
(The meteors of the state!) give vice her head,
To license lewd let loose the public rein;
Quench every spark of conscience in the land,
And triumph in the profligate's applause:
Or who to the first bidder sell their souls,
Their country sell, sell all their fathers bought
With funds exhausted and exhausted veins,
To demons, by his holiness ordain'd
To propagate the gospel--penn'd at Rome;
Hawk'd through the world by consecrated bulls;
And how illustrated?--by Smithfleld flames:
Who plunge (but not like Curtius) down the gulf,
Down narrow-minded self's voracious gulf,
Which gapes and swallows all they swore to save:
Hate all that lifted heroes into gods,
And hug the horrors of a victor's chain:
Of bodies politic that destin'd hell,
Inflicted here, since here their beings end;
And fall from foes detested and despis'd,
On disbelievers--of the statesman's creed.
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