JUDAS by JONATHAN SWIFT

By the just vengeance of incensed skies,
Poor Bishop Judas, late repenting, dies;
The Jews engaged him with a paltry bribe,
Amounting hardly to a crown a tribe;
Which, though his conscience forced him to restore,
(And, parsons tell us, no man can do more)
Yet, through despair, of God and man accursed,
He lost his bishopric, and hanged, or burst.
Those former ages differed much from this:
Judas betrayed his master with a kiss:
But, some have kissed the gospel fifty times,
Whose perjury's the least of all their crimes:
Some who can perjure through a two-inch board;
Yet keep their bishoprics, and 'scape the cord.
Like hemp, which by a skilful spinster drawn
To slender threads, may sometimes pass for lawn.
As ancient Judas by transgression fell,
And burst asunder e'er he went to hell;
So, could we see a set of new Iscariots,
Come headlong tumbling from their mitred chariots,
Each modern Judas perish like the first;
Drop from the tree with all his bowels burst;
Who could forbear, that viewed each guilty face,
To cry, 'Lo, Judas, gone to his own place:
His habitation let all men forsake,
And let his bishopric another take.'

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