Corn And Catholics.

        utrum horum
        dirius borun? Incerti Auctoris.


What! still those two infernal questions,
    That with our meals our slumbers mix--
That spoil our tempers and digestions--
    Eternal Corn and Catholics!

Gods! were there ever two such bores?
    Nothing else talkt of night or morn--
Nothing in doors or out of doors,
    But endless Catholics and Corn!

Never was such a brace of pests--
    While Ministers, still worse than either,
Skilled but in feathering their nests,
    Plague us with both and settle neither.

So addled in my cranium meet
    Popery and Corn that oft I doubt,
Whether, this year, 'twas bonded Wheat,
    Or bonded Papists, they let out.

Here, landlords, here polemics nail you,
    Armed with all rubbish they can rake up;
Prices and Texts at once assail you--
    From Daniel these, and those from Jacob,

And when you sleep, with head still torn
    Between the two, their shapes you mix,
Till sometimes Catholics seem Corn--
    Then Corn again seems Catholics.

Now Dantsic wheat before you floats--
    Now Jesuits from California--
Now Ceres linkt with Titus Oats,
    Comes dancing thro' the "Porta Cornea."[1]

Oft too the Corn grows animate,
    And a whole crop of heads appears,
Like Papists, bearding Church and State--
    Themselves, together by the ears!

In short these torments never cease,
    And oft I wish myself transferred off
To some far, lonely land of peace
    Where Corn or Papists ne'er were heard of.

Yes, waft me, Parry, to the Pole;
    For--if my fate is to be chosen
'Twixt bores and icebergs--on my soul,
    I'd rather, of the two, be frozen!