The master of the farm, displeased to find
  So much of rancour in so mild a kind, 1060
  Enquired into the cause, and came to know,
  The passive Church had struck the foremost blow;
  With groundless fears and jealousies possess’d,
  As if this troublesome intruding guest
  Would drive the birds of Venus from their nest;
  A deed his inborn equity abhorr’d;
  But Interest will not trust, though God should plight his word.

   A law,[135] the source of many future harms,
  Had banish’d all the poultry from the farms;
  With loss of life, if any should be found 1070
  To crow or peck on this forbidden ground. 
  That bloody statute chiefly was design’d
  For Chanticleer the white, of clergy kind;
  But after-malice did not long forget
  The lay that wore the robe and coronet. 
  For them, for their inferiors and allies,
  Their foes a deadly Shibboleth devise: 
  By which unrighteously it was decreed,
  That none to trust or profit should succeed,
  Who would not swallow first a poisonous wicked weed:[136] 1080
  Or that, to which old Socrates was cursed,
  Or henbane juice to swell them till they burst.

   The patron (as in reason) thought it hard
  To see this inquisition in his yard,
  By which the Sovereign was of subjects’ use debarr’d. 
  All gentle means he tried, which might withdraw
  The effects of so unnatural a law: 
  But still the Dove-house obstinately stood
  Deaf to their own and to their neighbours’ good;
  And which was worse, if any worse could be, 1090
  Repented of their boasted loyalty: 
  Now made the champions of a cruel cause. 
  And drunk with fumes of popular applause;
  For those whom God to ruin has design’d,
  He fits for fate, and first destroys their mind.

    New doubts indeed they daily strove to raise,
  Suggested dangers, interposed delays;
  And emissary Pigeons had in store,
  Such as the Meccan prophet used of yore,
  To whisper counsels in their patron’s ear; 1100
  And veil’d their false advice with zealous fear. 
  The master smiled to see them work in vain,
  To wear him out, and make an idle reign: 
  He saw, but suffer’d their protractive arts,
  And strove by mildness to reduce their hearts: 
  But they abused that grace to make allies,
  And fondly closed with former enemies;
  For fools are doubly fools, endeavouring to be wise.

    After a grave consult what course were best,
  One, more mature in folly than the rest, 1110
  Stood up, and told them, with his head aside,
  That desperate cures must be to desperate ills applied: 
  And therefore, since their main impending fear
  Was from the increasing race of Chanticleer,