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Title: Triumph Of Bigotry
Author: Thomas Moore [
More Titles by Moore]
College.--We announced, in our last that Lefroy and Shaw were returned. They were chaired yesterday; the Students of the College determined, it would seem, to imitate the mob in all things, harnessing themselves to the car, and the Masters of Arts bearing Orange flags and bludgeons before, beside, and behind the car." _Dublin Evening Post_, Dec. 20, 1832.
Ay, yoke ye to the bigots' car,
Ye chosen of Alma Mater's scions;-
Fleet chargers drew the God of War,
Great Cybele was drawn by lions,
And Sylvan Pan, as Poet's dream,
Drove four young panthers in his team.
Thus classical Lefroy, for once, is,
Thus, studious of a like turn-out,
He harnesses young sucking dunces,
To draw him as their Chief about,
And let the world a picture see
Of Dulness yoked to Bigotry:
Showing us how young College hacks
Can pace with bigots at their backs,
As tho' the cubs were _born_ to draw
Such luggage as Lefroy and Shaw,
Oh! shade of Goldsmith, shade of Swift,
Bright spirits whom, in days of yore,
This Queen of Dulness sent adrift,
As aliens to her foggy shore;---
Shade of our glorious Grattan, too,
Whose very name her shame recalls;
Whose effigy her bigot crew
Reversed upon their monkish walls,[1]--
Bear witness (lest the world should doubt)
To your mute Mother's dull renown,
Then famous but for Wit turned _out_,
And Eloquence _turned upside down_;
But now ordained new wreaths to win,
Beyond all fame of former days,
By breaking thus young donkies in
To draw M.P.s amid the brays
Alike of donkies and M.A.s;--
Defying Oxford to surpass 'em
In this new "_Gradus ad Parnassum_."
NOTE
[1] In the year 1799, the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, thought proper, as a mode of expressing their disapprobation of Mr. Grattan's public conduct, to order his portrait, in the Great Hall of the University, to be turned upside down, and in this position it remained for some time.
[The end]
Thomas Moore's poem: Triumph Of Bigotry
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