To The Pope
By Thomas William Hodgson Crosland
May it please your Holiness
There are possibly two,
Or it may be three,
Men
In Europe
Who could indite this Ode
Without treading on anybody's corns.
After mature reflection,
I am inclined to think that I am those three men
So that you will understand.
Well, my dear Pope, I hear on all hands
That you are engaged, at the present moment,
In the cheerful act and process
Of having a Jubilee.
I have had several myself
And I know what pleasant little functions they are,
Especially when the King
Sends a mission to congratulate one on them.
To proceed,
You must know, my dear Pope,
That, by conviction
And in my own delightful country,
I am a rabid, saw-toothed Kensitite Protestant;
All my ancestors figure gloriously
In Foxe's "Book of Martyrs,"
And, if they don't, they ought to.
Also, I never go into Smithfield
Without thinking of the far-famed fires thereof
And thanking my lucky stars
That this is Protestant England
And that the King defends the Faith.
But, when I get on to the Continent,
To do my week-end in Paris,
Or my "ten days at lovely Lucerne,"
Or my walk with Dr. Lunn
"In the footsteps of St. Paul,"
Why, then, somehow
The bottom falls clean out of my Kensitariousness
And I become a decent, mass-hearing, candle-burning Catholic.
That is curious, but true,
And may probably be accounted for
By differences of climate.
However, we can leave that;
Here, in England, my dear Pope,
We all like you,
Whether we be Catholics or Protestants or Jews or Gentiles or members of the Playgoers' Club;
And we all see you, in our minds' eye,
Seated benevolently upon your throne
Giving people blessings;
Or walking in the Vatican Garden
Clothed on with simple white.
We all think of you, my beloved Pope,
As a diaphanous and dear old gentleman
Whose intentions are the kindest in the world.
And yet, and yet, and yet -
The memory of Smithfield
So rages in our honest British blood
That, in spite of your white garments
And your placid, gentle ways,
We feel quite sure that you do carry,
Somewhere about your person,
A box of matches;
And that, if certain people had their way,
You would soon be lighting such a candle in England
That we should want a new Foxe
And a new Book of Martyrs
Of about the size of a pantechnicon.
Hence it is, my dear Pope,
That we - er - Englishmen remain Protestant
And make the King swear fearful oaths
Against popery and all its works,
Although, for aught one knows to the contrary,
He may have Mass said twice daily
Behind the curtain, as it were.
All the same, I wish you good wishes
As to this your Jubilee
And
Nihil obstat.