762. THE PETER-PENNY.
Fresh strewings allow
To my sepulchre now,
To make my lodging the sweeter;
A staff or a wand
Put then in my hand,
With a penny to pay S. Peter.
Who has not a cross
Must sit with the loss,
And no whit further must venture;
Since the porter he
Will paid have his fee,
Or else not one there must enter.
Who at a dead lift
Can't send for a gift
A pig to the priest for a roaster,
Shall hear his clerk say,
By yea and by nay,
No penny, no paternoster.
S. Peter, as the gate-ward of heaven.
Cross, a coin.
763. TO DOCTOR ALABASTER.
Nor art thou less esteem'd that I have plac'd,
Amongst mine honour'd, thee almost the last:
In great processions many lead the way
To him who is the triumph of the day,
As these have done to thee who art the one,
One only glory of a million:
In whom the spirit of the gods does dwell,
Firing thy soul, by which thou dost foretell
When this or that vast dynasty must fall
Down to a fillet more imperial;
When this or that horn shall be broke, and when
Others shall spring up in their place again;
When times and seasons and all years must lie
Drowned in the sea of wild eternity;
When the black doomsday books, as yet unseal'd,
Shall by the mighty angel be reveal'd;
And when the trumpet which thou late hast found
Shall call to judgment. Tell us when the sound
Of this or that great April day shall be,
And next the Gospel we will credit thee.
Meantime like earth-worms we will crawl below,
And wonder at those things that thou dost know.
For an account of Alabaster see [Notes]: the allusions here are to his apocalyptic writings.
Horn, used as a symbol of prosperity.
The trumpet which thou late hast found, i.e., Alabaster's "Spiraculum Tubarum seu Fons Spiritualium Expositionum," published 1633.
April day, day of weeping, or perhaps rather of "opening" or revelation.