Their diligence of careful herds below. 
    Our Panther, though like these she changed her head,
  Yet, as the mistress of a monarch’s bed,
  Her front erect with majesty she bore,
  The crosier wielded, and the mitre wore. 
  Her upper part of decent discipline
  Show’d affectation of an ancient line;
  And Fathers, Councils, Church, and Church’s head,
  Were on her reverend phylacteries read. 
  But what disgraced and disavow’d the rest, 400
  Was Calvin’s brand, that stigmatized the beast. 
  Thus, like a creature of a double kind,
  In her own labyrinth she lives confined. 
  To foreign lands no sound of her is come,
  Humbly content to be despised at home. 
  Such is her faith, where good cannot be had,
  At least she leaves the refuse of the bad: 
  Nice in her choice of ill, though not of best,
  And least deform’d, because reform’d the least. 
  In doubtful points betwixt her differing friends, 410
  Where one for substance, one for sign contends,
  Their contradicting terms she strives to join;
  Sign shall be substance, substance shall be sign. 
  A real presence all her sons allow,
  And yet ’tis flat idolatry to bow,
  Because the Godhead’s there they know not how. 
  Her novices are taught that bread and wine
  Are but the visible and outward sign,
  Received by those who in communion join. 
  But the inward grace, or the thing signified, 420
  His blood and body, who to save us died;
  The faithful this thing signified receive: 
  What is’t those faithful then partake or leave? 
  For what is signified and understood,
  Is, by her own confession, flesh and blood. 
  Then, by the same acknowledgment, we know
  They take the sign, and take the substance too. 
  The literal sense is hard to flesh and blood,
  But nonsense never can be understood.

    Her wild belief on every wave is toss’d; 430
  But sure no Church can better morals boast: 
  True to her king her principles are found;
  O that her practice were but half so sound! 
  Steadfast in various turns of state she stood,
  And seal’d her vow’d affection with her blood: 
  Nor will I meanly tax her constancy,
  That interest or obligement made the tie
  Bound to the fate of murder’d monarchy. 
  Before the sounding axe so falls the vine,
  Whose tender branches round the poplar twine. 440
  She chose her ruin, and resign’d her life,
  In death undaunted as an Indian wife: 
  A rare example! but some souls we see
  Grow hard, and stiffen with adversity: 
  Yet these by fortune’s favours are undone;
  Resolved into a baser form they run,
  And bore the wind, but cannot bear the sun. 
  Let this be nature’s frailty, or her fate,
  Or Isgrim’s[106] counsel, her new-chosen mate;
  Still she’s the fairest of the fallen crew, 450
  No mother more indulgent, but the true.