Thus Etough looked; so grinned the brawling fiend,
While frighted prelates bowed and called him friend;
I saw them bow, and while they wished him dead,
With servile simper nod the mitred head.
Our mother-church, with half-averted sight,
Blushed as she blessed her grisly proselyte;
Hosannas rung through hell’s tremendous borders,
And Satan’s self had thoughts of taking orders.
Public-domain source text
Tophet
by Thomas Gray
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