[Tophet]

Inscription on a Portrait

1 Such Tophet was; so looked the grinning fiend
2 Whom many a frighted prelate called his friend;
3 I saw them bow and, while they wished him dead,
4 With servile simper nod the mitred head.
5 Our Mother-Church with half-averted sight
6 Blushed as she blessed her grisly proselyte:
7 Hosannahs rung through Hell's tremendous borders,
8 And Satan's self had thoughts of taking orders.

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About this text

Title (in Source Edition): [Tophet] Inscription on a Portrait
Author: Thomas Gray
Themes:
Genres: inscription; satire

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Source edition

Gray, Thomas, 1716-1771. Thomas Gray: English poems. Web. Oxford: Thomas Gray Archive, 2002. http://www.thomasgray.org/texts/poems.shtml

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Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

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