Intelligencers: Elizabethan Espionage

Witness the godless dominion of secrets:
From degenerate Italy,the English,bewitched,
Learn spycraft,revelling in a theatre of ghosts.
The hunted deer in the thicket would be torn
To pieces;the traitor-seducer of souls,father
Of bastard plots,-would see,on the scaffold,
His body dismembered like a fallen state,
His genitals severed and held up to the mob.
As the artist hones his style through zeal
And practice,so the torturer,busy in the dark,
Blood-wedded to his fascinating instruments.
Malocchio is everywhere,the serpentine eyes
Of devils,the scarlet Pope’s illegitimate seed,
Creeping in and out of their priest-holes.
The cipherer’s hand,lettered in diabolism,
Stirs the shadows; imps leap to the service
Of their masters,and nightmares,saddled
By unhappy squires,ride on savage quests.