To The Pope

    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.