Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/110

And that great ancient saint Herostratus,
And the late godly martyr at Toulouse.
Dare something worthy Newgate and the Tower,
If you'll be canonized, and heaven insure.
Dull primitive fools of old I who would be good,
Who would by virtue reach the blessed abode!
Far other are the ways found out of late,
Which mortals to that happy place translate:
Rebellion, treason, murder, massacre,
The chief ingredients now of saintship are,
And Tyburn only stocks the calendar.
Unhappy Judas, whose ill fate, or chance,
Threw him upon gross times of ignorance;
Who knew not how to value, or esteem
The worth and merit of a glorious crime!
Should his kind stars have let him acted now,
He had died absolved, and died a martyr too.
Hear'st thou, great God, such daring blasphemy,
And let'st thy patient thunder still lay by?
Strike, and avenge, lest impious atheists say,
Chance guides the world, and has usurped thy sway;
Let these proud prosperous villains too confess,
Thou'rt senseless, as they make thy images.
Thou just and sacred Power! wilt thou admit
Such guests should in thy glorious presence sit?
If Heaven can with such company dispense,
Well did the Indian pray, might he keep thence!
But this we only feign, all vain and false
As their own legends, miracles, and tales;
Either the groundless calumnies of spite,
Or idle rants of poetry and wit.
We wish they were: but you hear Garnet cry,
'I did it, and would do 't again; had I
As much of blood, as many lives as Rome
Has spilt in what the fools call martyrdom,
As many souls as sins, I'd freely stake
All them, and more for mother church's sake.
For that I'll stride o'er crowns, swim through a flood,
Made up of slaughtered monarchs' brains and blood.