Bishop Bonner's Ghost

REFORMER, hold! ah! spare my shade,
Respect the hallow'd dead;
Vain pray'r! I see the op'ning glade,
See utter darkness fled.

Just so your innovating hand
Let in the moral light;
So, chas'd from this bewilder'd land,
Fled intellectual night.

Where now that holy gloom which hid
Fair truth from vulgar ken?
Where now that wisdom which forbid
To think that monks were men?

The tangled mazes of the schools
Which spread so thick before,
Which knaves intwin'd to puzzle fools,
Shall catch mankind no more.

Those charming intricacies where?
Those venerable lies?
Those legends, once the church's care,
Those sweet perplexities?

Ah! fatal age, whose sons combin'd
Of credit to exhaust us;
Ah! fatal age, which gave mankind
A Luther and a Faustus!

Had only Jack and Martin liv'd,
Our pow'r had slowly fled;
Our influence longer had surviv'd
Had laymen never read.

For knowledge flew, like magic spell,
By typographic art:
Oh, shame! a peasant now can tell
If priests the truth impart.

Ye councils, pilgrimages, creeds!
Synods, decrees, and rules!
Ye warrants of unholy deeds,
Indulgencies and bulls!

Where are ye now? and where, alas!
The pardons we dispense?
And penances, the sponge of sins;
And Peter's holy pence?

Where now the beads, which us'd to swell
Lean virtue's spare amount?
Here only faith and goodness fill
A heretic's account.

But soft—what gracious form appears?
Is this a convent's life?
Atrocious sight! by all my fears,
A prelate with a wife!

Ah! sainted Mary, not for this
Our pious labours join'd;
The witcheries of domestic bliss
Had shook ev'n Gardiner's mind.

Hence all the sinful, human ties,
Which mar the cloyster's plan;
Hence all the weak fond charities,
Which make man feel for man.

But tortur'd memory vainly speaks
The projects we design'd,
While this apostate bishop seeks
The freedom of mankind.

Oh, born in ev'ry thing to shake
The systems plann'd by me!
So heterodox, that he wou'd make
Both soul and body free.

Nor clime nor colour stays his hand;
With charity deprav'd,
He wou'd, from Thames' to Gambia's strand,
Have all be free and sav'd.

And who shall change his wayward heart;
His wilful spirit turn?
For those his labours can't convert,
His weakness will not burn.