Department of bad poetry

The "Papal Aggression" generated sermons, tracts, novels...and, alas, poetry.  Someone writing under the pseudonym "Pyraxius" decided to perpetrate The Martyr's Memorial (1851), which contains such sublime stanzas as this:

        And there were shouts of triumph on that day!
        And ROME exulted in her feast of blood!
        So the fierce Vulture rends her panting prey,
        And piecemeal mangles in delirious mood!
        The Gate Flaminian and the Appian Way
        Rang with tumultuous rapture; while the brood
        Of bloodstain'd worshippers at PETER'S SHRINE
        Crown'd with sweet-incens'd prayers the holocaust
            divine!

Not one of the more pro-Catholic poems of the nineteenth century, just in case you were wondering.

I keep thinking that I should write an article about this material.  And yet, somehow, I have managed to refrain. 

Comments

[Bourgeois Nerd]

At first, I read, "So the fierce Vulture rends her PANTY prey," and was all like, "Naughty!" Then I realized it was "panting prey" and I was rather dejected. It was much more interesting the former way.

[richard]

I have faith that you'll write about this eventually. How can you not, with this kind of tempting material?

[Pentimento]

I've just stumbled on your excellent blog - what a great find. Thank you for linking to this poem -- I was not familiar with it, but I'm finishing up a dissertation chapter that deals with the "Papal Aggression" Act, and this is wonderful (well, perhaps wonderful is not quite the right word).