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JOAN OF ARC.
That the Maid gazed with half-averting eye, 675And shudder'd: each one was a loathly corpse!The worm did banquet on his putrid prey,Yet had they life and feeling exquisite,Tho' motionless and mute."Most wretched menAre these," the angel cried. "These, JOAN, are Bards, 680Whose loose lascivious lays perpetuateTheir own corruption. Soul-polluted slaves,Who sat them down, deliberately lewd,So to awake and pamper lust in minds,Unborn; and therefore foul of body now 685As then they were of soul, they here abideTheir punishment, and here they must abideLong as the evil works they left on earthShall live to taint mankind. A dreadful doom!Yet amply merited by that bad man 690Who prostitutes the sacred gift of song."
They enter'd now a large and lofty dome,

O'er

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