Classic Poem

AGAINST THE CORRUPTIONS OF THE COURT OF ROME

Fountain of sorrow, inn of cursed ire,
College of error, temple of heresy,
Cistern of greed and insatiety,
Rome erstwhile, now the Babylon whore of hire!
Cesspool of lies, O dungeon full of fire,
Where truth is compost to idolatry,
Hell upon earth, it shall go wondrously
If Christ pile not thy scarlet on the pyre!
Founded in want and honour unpolluted,
Against thy founders pointest thou thy horn,
Impudent Jezebel? Is thy faith rooted
In thine adulteries and gold ill-born?
But since there strides no purging Constantine,
The world must suffer or its shame define.