THE POPE AND THE PIG.
As when, mid cots of rustic swains,
With piercing and discordant cry,
Resound the distant hills and plains
To shrill inhabitant of style;
The hearer of the dismal squeal
Of pain, resentment, wrath self-willed,
A touch of sympathy will feel,
And say, “That pig is being killed.”
But should he haply bend his course,
Impelled by an inquiring mind,
To trace that clamour to its source,
Small reason for for great noise he’ll find,
For grains perchance a mere demand,
Or swill withheld by lazy clown;
Or else the pig is urged to stand
When fully bent ob lying down.
So, when with persecution’s roar,
The Irish priests our ears assail,
And raise upon Hibernia’s shore,
A yell that loads the Western gale;
We think the chief for whom they howl,
To awful grief must sure have come,
Suppose, at hands of heathen foul,
The Pope is suffering martyrdom.
And so, when we the cause inquire
Of all the row those Papists make,
As though their venerated Sire
Alive were roasting at the stake,
The motive of their uproar all
We find his threatened loss of state;
The Papist’s grievance thus is small,
And, like the pigs’, their cry is great.
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