PANEGYRIC TO THE HIGH AND MIGHTY MONARCH, CHARLES By the grace of GOD, King of Great BRITAIN, FRANCE, and IRELAND, Defender of the Faith. etc.  
By WALTER FORBES.  
EDINBURGH. Printed by john Wreittoun. 1633.   

EPIGRAM.  
ILLustrious Top-bough of heroic Stem,  
Whose head is crowned with Glory's Anademe,  
My shallow Muse, not daring to draw near  
Bright Phoebus' burning flammes in his Career:  
Yet knowing surely that Apollo shines  
Upon the dunghill, as on golden Mines.  
And knowing this the bounty of best Kings,  
To mark the giver, not the gifted things,  
Doth boldly venture in this pompous throng  
To greet thy Greatness with a Welcome song.  
And with the By doth Ave Caesar sing,  
Whilst graver wits do greater offerings bring.   

PANEGYRIC  
Admired Phoenix, springing from those Sires,  
Whose Souls the heaven, whose merit Fame admyres,  
Whose memory is wrapped up in rolls,  
Kept by Eternity above the Poles:  
Thryse-blessed CHARLES, sprung from thy royal Sire  
Great JAMES, whose Fame shall with this frame expyre:  
And yet begin a fresh for to be sung,  
By sacred Quires, in a celestial tongue;  
O thou the Subject of this well-born thought!  
Immortal King, hast neither said nor wrought  
Any thing yet, which can detract Thy praise,  
Since thou'rt more old in virtues than in days:  
Bred in the bed of honour, Thou art blessed  
With rare perfections, far above the rest  
Of Mortal kind: for as Thy birth is great,  
So is thy mind, too high a mark for hate:  
Envy may spew her spite, yet cannot harm  
The Man, whom all the host of Heaven doth arm:  
When bright Apollo circling in his Car,  
Doth drive away the day-denuncing Star,  
His powerful rays diffuse in mortal minds  
A sweet desire of day, which strait unbindes  
Sleep-fettered-fences, and his cheerful light  
Doth waste all vapours closed in cloudy night:  
So my dear Phoebus whilst Thy face doth shine  
Upon this Land, which by descent is Thine  
From hundred and eight Kings, thy cheerful rays,  
Do change my nights in Haltionian days:  
And strait dissolve these frightful forms of woe,  
Which did possess my troubled thoughts ago.  
What sad affliction did my soul possess,  
When Iber's streams reflexed thy glorious face;  
My groans are turned to greetings, and my wrongs  
Are changed in hymns and sweet Syrenean songs:  
My spirit then, which for thy absence groaned,  
Rejoiceth now to see Thee here enthroned.  
What greater joy can I conceive, than see  
My native Prince, his native Throne supply:  
Thrice happy CHARLES with all those gifts enriched,  
Which heavens allot to Mortals, I'm bewitched  
In admiration of these royal parts,  
Which makes thee more than Monarch of men's hearts,  
My heart and hands, and all submitted here,  
Attest the heavens that I account Thee dear,  
And dearest dear of all this All: I place  
My chiefest joys in favour of thy face,  
I do not point my praises, nor this Land,  
Although rich Nature with a liberal hand  
Hath bravely decked her with all kind of things,  
Which from her womb for humane use forth springs,  
Both Pan and Pales, pleasures, Gems and Ore,  
Which wretched worldlings for their god adore:  
I, only I, when all the World by War,  
Was boiled in blood as red as Mars' Star,  
Did safely sleep, secured from foreign Arms,  
And did disdain Bellona's loud alarms:  
The Goths, the Danes, the saxons here did feel,  
And normans fierce, the fury of my Steel:  
here Caesar pitched his tents, and proudly thought  
His Trophies o'er our Tombs to Rome have brought,  
But all in vain, his conquering hand was stayed,  
And by his troops a wall-divyding laid  
At Charon's banks, whose ruins yet may tell,  
How far in worth I did his force excel:  
And as in Mars, so in Minerva's field  
For Arms and Arts I keep rich Pallas shield,  
Did not the Germans borrow light from me,  
And France, which all posterity shall see  
Even to the fatal doom, when All's in fire,  
Then shall the records of my worth expyre:  
Thus Gracious CHARLES deign with a loving eye,  
The sweet desires of my pure heart to spy.  
Look with what love and with what cheerful part,  
I consecreate to Thee, a loyal heart,  
My humbled knees lo! and my heaved up hands,  
The sacred oath of love from thee demands:  
Thrice Glorious CHARLES, how amiable's thy face,  
Whose loving looks my clouds of care do chase:  
I reap more joy from this thy coming here,  
Then e'er Penelope of Ulysses dear:  
Who after thousand dangers did return,  
And cured those griefs, which did her bowels burn:  
O Thou more worthy than Ulysses far,  
Honours bright Ray, Goodness, and Greatness, Star,  
Long did I wish to see thy sacred Face,  
My Towns and Temples with thy presence grace:  
Great joves' Vicegerent look with kind aspect  
On my Emporium EDINBURGH, direct  
No oblique Rays, accept in love Her Shows,  
Her Verdant Glory which so bravely goes,  
To do Thee service, all her cost compense  
With kind acceptance, with her faults dispense,  
And if in Her omission shall be found,  
Let Her Endeavours brave, Defects confound:  
If jove who all the starry Heavens doth guide,  
Delights sometimes at Creta to abide,  
As in the place, where first he sucked th'air.  
And if Apollo, Delos doth repair,  
Leaving his Claros, Tenedos behind;  
Thus since th'immortal gods have such a mind  
To Native soil, it is no wonder then  
Though Demigods be moved, and earthborn men  
May still Great CHARLES thy Scotland Creta be,  
And Delos where thou may delight, to see  
The Naides and the Mountain Nymphs most fair,  
With unaccustomd clamours beat the Air,  
The Satyr's dance, the Coribantean Priests  
O're-joyde with joy to pulse their paunting briests:  
O what great joy hath Thy dear presence brought,  
Let all the Annals through all age be sought,  
The like was never seen, the senseless stones  
Do melt for joy, the Mountains leap at once,  
The winds are calmed, and Neptune's loudest roar  
Deaude with my shouts of joy is heard no more,  
And when the Air with thy great Name I wound,  
The Mountain's answer, and the Rocks resound,  
The Woods re-echoed, and the Floods proclaim,  
Melodious murmurs hearing of thy Name,  
The Fishes, Fowls, and Beasts are struck with wonder,  
Whilst to the clouds I tell my joys in thunder.  
Thou art my rich Palladium, while I keep  
My God and Thee, I may securely sleep,  
And fear no terror nor disturbing foe,  
Whilst I have Thee, to ante-vert my woe,  
GOD hath by nature walled me round about,  
And given me Neptune sentinel and scout,  
Whose tossed Trident threateneth death to such  
As dare in deep disdain my borders touch  
And if by Fates I be enforced to war,  
And make my Lions roar be heard afar  
O may it be for some such sacred cause!  
As doth subsist with Heaven and humane Laws.  
O! may it be to vindicate the wrong  
Of thy dear Sister, and her Children young  
Whose matclesse Worth and virtues merit praise  
From all which canset, sing, or sound sweet lays,  
Till she, (dear she,) be reinvest again  
With her own Rights, possessed with her demaine,  
Till she be safely situate on her Rhine,  
(And as the Moon amongst the Stars doth shine)  
Till she in greatness do exceed all those,  
Who to her glory did their rage oppose,  
Till that Sun-gazing Eagle be forced to fall  
Before her feet, and for her pardon call:  
Let's beat Alarms, and let our Trumpets sound,  
Let Cornets shrill the yielding air now wound,  
Let frightful shouts of Soldiers pierce the sky,  
And reach the convexe of Olympus' high  
Above the thundering clouds, let noises make,  
The soaring Eagle for fear of CHARLES to shake.  
Let Vienn's walls astonished with our cry  
Like stubble before the fire, fall down and fly  
Scattered with winds of his revenging wrath,  
Who in his hand hath power of life and death.  
Let Rome with her seven hills be shaken too  
And at thy Name O CHARLES obedient bow,  
(Heaven grant I may victorious still return,  
Drunk with the blood of foes sleep in the urn  
Of my Ancestors, whose Manes shall be glad,  
When it shall be to future Ages said  
That I in worth did so exceed them far,  
As doth the Sun in light each little Star)  
O may thy Ensigns ever be displayed!  
O may my heart and hand be ne'er dismayed  
In thy defence, till all the World adore  
Thy dreadful Name from Vesper till Aurore.  
Thine be the Night and Day, may stars bright shine,  
And Planets wander o'er no Land but Thine,  
And when by Death Thou shall shut up Thy days  
Thy memory shall still inherit praise,  
And After-age shall Obelisks uprear,  
In which thy Worth and Virtues shall appear,  
High Phanes and Temples shall by Thy Name be called  
And Thou amongst th'immortal Gods enstalld  
Shall see the Offerings and the yearly Vows,  
Posterity unto thy Fame allows.  
Religious rites and games for Thee erected,  
Shall show on Earth how high Thou wast respected.  
FINIS.