The dread event to render clear
Now the pen I take in hand.
At the dread event aghast,
Straight the world reform'd its course;
Yet is sin in greater force,
Now the punishment is past;
For the thought of God is cast
All and utterly aside,
As if death itself had died.
Therefore to the present race
These memorial lines I trace
In old Egypt's tongue of pride.
As the streets you wander'd through
How you quail'd with fear and dread,
Heaps of dying and of dead
At the leeches' door to view.
To the tavern O how few
To regale on wine repair;
All a sickly aspect wear.
Say what heart such sights could brook -
Wail and woe where'er you look -
Wail and woe and ghastly care.
Plying fast their rosaries,
See the people pace the street,
And for pardon God entreat
Long and loud with streaming eyes.
And the carts of various size,
Piled with corses, high in air,
To the plain their burden bear.
O what grief it is to me
Not a friar or priest to see
In this city huge and fair.
ON THE LANGUAGE OF THE GITANOS
'I am not very willing that any language should be totally
extinguished; the similitude and derivation of languages afford the
most indubitable proof of the traduction of nations, and the
genealogy of mankind; they add often physical certainty to
historical evidence of ancient migrations, and of the revolutions
of ages which left no written monuments behind them.
Pages:
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364