We want not thy lance, since our legions advance
Beneath the bless'd banner of Constantine's cross.

Juno, Venus, and Pallas, to shame were so callous,
And have always so widely from decency swerved,
That it well might be urged, if their statues were scourged
And then thrown in the kennel, their doom was deserved.

The pontiffs and priests, who have lost all their feasts,
And the oracles shorn of their hecatomb herds,
Having nothing to carve, if they don't wish to starve,
Must feed upon falsehoods and eat their own words.

O'er these mountebanks dead, be this epitaph read,
"The Gods, Priests and Oracles buried beneath,
Who were ever at strife which should lie most in life,
Here _lie_ all alike in corruption and death."

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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.


* * * * *


SHELLEY AT OXFORD.