Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO ZEALOTS UPON THE &C. IN THE OATH, by JOHN CLEVELAND


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN TWO ZEALOTS UPON THE &C. IN THE OATH, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Sir roger, from a zealous piece of frieze
Last Line: They and their tribe were all &c.
Subject(s): Booker, John (1603-1677); Oaths; Religious Discrimination; Religious Conflict


SIR ROGER, from a zealous piece of frieze
Raised to a vicar of the children's threes;
Whose yearly audit may by strict account
To twenty nobles and his vails amount;
Fed on the common of the female charity
Until the Scots can bring about their parity;
So shotten that his soul, like to himself,
Walks but in cuerpo; this same clergy-elf,
Encountering with a brother of the cloth,
Fell presently to cudgels with the Oath.
The quarrel was a strange misshapen monster,
&c., (God bless us) which they conster
The brand upon the buttock of the Beast,
The Dragon's tail tied on a knot, a nest
Of young Apocryphas, the fashion
Of a new mental Reservation.
While Roger thus divides the text, the other
Winks and expounds, saying, 'My pious brother,
Hearken with reverence, for the point is nice.
I never read on 't, but I fasted twice,
And so by revelation know it better
Than all the learn'd idolaters o'th' letter.'
With that he swelled, and fell upon the theme
Like great Goliah with his weaver's beam.
'I say to thee, &c., thou li'st!
Thou art the curled lock of Antichrist;
Rubbish of babel; for who will not say
Tongues were confounded in &c.?
Who swears &c., swears more oaths at once
Than Cerberus out of his triple sconce.
Who views it well, with the same eye beholds
The old half Serpent in his numerous folds.
Accurst &c. thou, for now I scent
What lately the prodigious oysters meant!
Oh Booker! Booker! How camest thou to lack
This sign in thy prophetic almanac?
It's the dark vault wherein th' infernal plot
Of powder 'gainst the State was first begot.
Peruse the Oath and you shall soon descry it
By all the Father Garnets that stand by it;
'Gainst whom the Church, (whereof I am a member,)
Shall keep another Fifth Day of November.
Yet here's not all; I cannot half untruss
&c. -- it's so abhominous!
The Trojan nag was not so fully lined;
Unrip &c., and you shall find
Og the great commissary, and (which is worse)
The apparitor upon his skew-bald horse.
Then finally, my babe of grace, forbear,
&c. will be too far to swear,
For 'tis (to speak in a familiar style)
A Yorkshire wee bit longer than a mile.'
Here Roger was inspired, and by God's diggers
He'll swear in words at large but not in figures.
Now by this drink, which he takes off, as loath
To leave &c. in his liquid oath.
His brother pledged him, and that bloody wine
He swears shall seal the Synod's Catiline.
So they drunk on, not offering to part
'Till they had quite sworn out th' eleventh quart,
While all that saw and heard them jointly pray
They and their tribe were all &c.





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