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!