False fears their leaders fail'd not to suggest, As if the Doves were to be dispossess'd; Nor sighs, nor groans, nor gogling eyes did want; For now the Pigeons too had learnt to cant. 1210 The house of pray'r is stock'd with large increase, Nor doors, nor windows can contain the press: For birds of ev'ry feather fill th' abode;
E'en Atheists, out of envy, own a God; adult'rers come,
And, reeking from the stews,
Like Goths and Vandals, to demolish Rome.
That conscience, which to all their crimes was mute.
Now cries aloud, and cries to persecute;
No rigour of the laws to be releas'd,
And much the less, because it was their lord's
They thought it great, their sov'reign to control, And nam'd their pride, Nobility of soul.
'Tis true, the Pigeous, and their prince elect, Were short of pow'r their purpose to effect: : But with their quills did all the hurt they could, And cuff'd the tender chickens from their food: And much the Buzzard, in their cause, did stir, Though naming not the patron-to infer, With all respest, he was a gross idolater.
But when th' imperial owner did espy, That thus they turn'd his grace to villany, Not suff'ring wrath to discompose his mind, He strove a temper for th' extremes to find; So to be just, as he might still be kind;
Then, all maturely weigh'd, pronounced a doom,
Of sacred strength for ev'ry age to come.
By this the Doves their wealth and state possess,
No rights infring'd, but licence to oppress:
Such pow'r have they, as factious lawyers long
To crowns ascrib'd, that kings can do no wrong.
But since his own domestic birds have try'd 1241
The dire effects of their destructive pride,
He deems that proof a measure to the rest ;
Concluding well, within his kingly breast,
His fowls of Nature too unjustly were opprest.
He therefore makes all birds of ev'ry sect
Free of his farm, with promise to respect
Their sev'ral kinds alike, and equally protect.
His gracious edict the same franchise yields 1249
To all the wild increase of woods and fields,
And who in rocks aloof, and who in steeples(
builds.
To Crows the like impartial grace affords,
And Choughs and Daws, and such republic birds:
Secur'd with ample privilege to feed,
Each has his dictrict, and his bounds decreed;
Combin'd in common int'rest with his own,
But not to pass the Pigeon's Rubicon.
Here ends the reign of his pretended Dove:
All prophesies accomplish'd from above;
For Shiloh comes the sceptre to remove.
Reduc'd from her imperial high abode,
(Like Dionysius to a private rod,)
The passive church, that, with pretended grace,
Did her distinctive mark, in duty, place,
Now touch'd, reviles her Maker to his face.
What after happen'd is not hard to guess :
The small beginnings had a large increase,
And arts and wealth succeed, the sacred spoils (
of peace.
'Tis said, the Doves repented, though too late, 1269
Become the smiths of their own foolish fate:
Nor did their owner hasten their ill hour;
But, sunk in credit, they decreas'd in pow'r :
Like snows in warmth, that mildly pass away,
Dissolving in the silence of decay.
The Buzzard, not content with equal place,
Invites the feather'd Nimrods of his race;
To hide the thinness of their flock from sight,
And, all together, make a seeming goodly flight:
But each have sep'rate int'rests of their own;
Two czars are one too many for a throne.
Nor can th' usurper long abstain from food;
Already he has tasted Pigeon's blood;
And may be tempted to his former fare,
When this indulgent lord shall late to heav'n repair.
Bare, benting times, and moulting months may come,
When, lagging late, they cannot reach their home;
Or rent in schism-(for so their fate decrees)
Like the tumultuous college of the bees—
They fight their quarrel, by themselves oppress'd;
The tyrant smiles below; and waits the falling feast.
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