May it please your Holiness...

May it please your Holiness

There are possibly two,

Or it may be three,

Men

In Europe

Who could indite this Ode

Without treading on anybody's corns.

After mature reflection,

I am inclined to think that I am those three men

So that you will understand.

Well, my dear Pope, I hear on all hands

That you are engaged, at the present moment,

In the cheerful act and process

Of having a Jubilee.

I have had several myself

And I know what pleasant little functions they are,

Especially when the King

Sends a mission to congratulate one on them.

To proceed,

You must know, my dear Pope,

That, by conviction

And in my own delightful country,

I am a rabid, saw-toothed Kensitite Protestant;

All my ancestors figure gloriously

In Foxe's “Book of Martyrs,”

And, if they do n't, they ought to.

Also, I never go into Smithfield

Without thinking of the far-famed fires thereof

And thanking my lucky stars

That this is Protestant England

And that the King defends the Faith.

But, when I get on to the Continent,

To do my week-end in Paris,

Or my “ten days at lovely Lucerne,”

Or my walk with Dr. Lunn

“In the footsteps of St. Paul,”

Why, then, somehow

The bottom falls clean out of my Kensitariousness

And I become a decent, mass-hearing, candle-burning Catholic.

That is curious, but true,

And may probably be accounted for

By differences of climate.

However, we can leave that;

Here, in England, my dear Pope,

We all like you,

Whether we be Catholics or Protestants or Jews or Gentiles or members of the Playgoers’ Club;

And we all see you, in our minds’ eye,

Seated benevolently upon your throne

Giving people blessings;

Or walking in the Vatican Garden

Clothed on with simple white.

We all think of you, my beloved Pope,

As a diaphanous and dear old gentleman

Whose intentions are the kindest in the world.

And yet, and yet, and yet —

The memory of Smithfield

So rages in our honest British blood

That, in spite of your white garments

And your placid, gentle ways,

We feel quite sure that you do carry,

Somewhere about your person,

A box of matches;

And that, if certain people had their way,

You would soon be lighting such a candle in England

That we should want a new Foxe

And a new Book of Martyrs

Of about the size of a pantechnicon.

Hence it is, my dear Pope,

That we — er — Englishmen remain Protestant

And make the King swear fearful oaths

Against popery and all its works,

Although, for aught one knows to the contrary,

He may have Mass said twice daily

Behind the curtain, as it were.

All the same, I wish you good wishes

As to this your Jubilee

And

Nihil obstat.