---

Andrew Lang - Ballade Against The Jesuits
Work rating: Low

Rome does right well to censure all the vain
Talk of Jansenius, and of them who preach
That earthly joys are damnable!  `Tis plain
We need not charge at Heaven as at a breach;
No, amble on!  We`ll gain it, one and all;
The narrow path`s a dream fantastical,
And Arnauld`s quite superfluously driven
Mirth from the world.  We`ll scale the heavenly wall,
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!

He does not hold a man may well be slain
Who vexes with unseasonable speech,
You MAY do murder for five ducats gain,
NOT for a pin, a ribbon, or a peach;
He ventures (most consistently) to teach
That there are certain cases that befall
When perjury need no good man appal,
And life of love (he says) may keep a leaven.
Sure, hearing this, a grateful world will bawl,
"Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!"

"For God`s sake read me somewhat in the strain
Of his most cheering volumes, I beseech!"
Why should I name them all? a mighty train -
So many, none may know the name of each.
Make these your compass to the heavenly beach,
These only in your library instal:
Burn Pascal and his fellows, great and small,
Dolts that in vain with Escobar have striven;
I tell you, and the common voice doth call,
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!

ENVOY.

SATAN, that pride did hurry to thy fall,
Thou porter of the grim infernal hall -
Thou keeper of the courts of souls unshriven!
To shun thy shafts, to `scape thy hellish thrall,
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!
Source
The script ran 0.001 seconds.