For these sons of circumcision
Are the monarch’s favourite creatures;
They command his troops, and also
In finances are his teachers.
Suddenly the drums ’gin beating,
And the trumpets’ bray announces
That the conflict is beginning,
Where each knight the other trounces.
The Franciscan monk commences,
Bursting into furious passion,
And his voice, now harsh, now growling,
Blusters in a curious fashion.
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
In one sentence he comprises,
And the seed accurst of Jacob
In the Rabbi exorcises.
For in suchlike controversies
Little devils oft are hidden
In the Jews, and give them sharpness,
Wit, and arguments when bidden.
Having thus expell’d the devil
By his mighty exorcism,
Comes the monk, dogmatically,
Quoting from the catechism.
He recounts how in the Godhead
Persons three are comprehended,
Who, whenever they so will it,
Into one are straightway blended.
’Tis a mystery unfolded
But to those who, in due season,
Have escaped from out the prison
And the chains of human reason.
He recounts how God was born at
Bethlehem, of a tenderhearted
Virgin, whose divine unsullied
Innocency ne’er departed.
How they laid the Lord Almighty
In a lowly stable manger,
Where the calf and heifer meekly
Stood around the newborn stranger.