Was to light elsewhere restor'd,
They wash'd their hands in the monarch's blood,
And the world roll'd on the same,
Till swift to the holy shrine at Rome,
A fluttering dove there came.
A dove, a peaceful, timorous bird,
That carried a parchment scroll,
And in letters of gold, the crime it told,
That blasted a sister's soul.
That fluttering dove flew round the shrine,
Where the Pope by chance was led,
And he let the scribbled parchment fall
On his holiness' bald head.
Now the Pope was very sore perplex'd,
At the words the dove had scrawl'd,
For he could not read the pig-squeak tongue,
Which is now old English call'd.
He questioned the French ambassador,
The news of that scroll to speak.
Who bowing observed, "it was not _French_,
He never had learn'd the _Greek_."
He ask'd a monk from _Byzantium_,
A monk as fat as a tench,
He merely remark'd "it was not _Greek_,
He never had learn'd the _French_."
He question'd the grave Lord Cardinal,
He ordered the monks to pray'rs,
The monks ne'er knew what language it was,
When they saw it was not theirs.
But there chanced to be an Englishman,