TIME Is a Turncoat. OR England's threefold Metamorphosis.  
Wherein is acted the Pensive man's Epilogomena, to London's late lamentable Heroical Comi-Tragedie.  
ALSO A panegyrical Pageant-speech or Idylion pronounced to the City of London, upon the entrance of her long expected Comfort.  
Qui colour after erat, nunc est contrarius atro.  
Written by JOHN HANSON.  
LONDON, Printed for I. H. and are to be sold at the sign of the Bible in Paul's Churchyard.  
1604.   

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE SIR THOMAS BENNET KNIGHT, LORD MAYOR OF the famous City of London, the right Worshipful Sir William Romley, and Sir Thomas Midleton Knights, and Sheriffs of the same City: increase of honour and ever-flourishing felicity.  
RIGHT Honourable and right Worshipful, I have long expected, that some men of greater experience and graver judgement than myself, ere this should have bend their studies to congratulate your prosperous designments with their learned Labours: not only in this regard, that it hath seemed gracious in the eyes of Heaven, to turn the time of destruction into mirth and exhilaration, to dispel the clouds of desolation from the splendent Sun of this City, and to seal up the jaws of that starved Tiger, ravening and ranging too and fro with insatiate appetite, to gormandize indefinitely without partiality: but also in respect of the proceedings in your general functions and callings; therein manifesting your ardent zeal to the Church and Commonwealth, in the reformation of some particular and monstrous enormities nurced and fostered up in the same City, wounding the hearts of many with the sting of Security, who thereby fall into a Lethargy of their own ruination: they being naturally like the Basilisk, who by stinging a man, provoketh him to conclude his destruction with the period of a sweet sleep; which to discuss upon more amply, were but to light a torch, when the Sun boasteth in his vertical point, or to multiply leaves to a green tree. But perceiving the turn of Time's event to fall out opposite to my expectation, and a time of respiration exhibited unto me by sacred Providence, (for Deus nobis haec otiafecit) I (though most unfit, not so much in regard of my little scholership and reading, as in respect of my iwenilitie and less experience, though Assiduè discens plurima, fiam senex) have thought it not impertinent to my duty, as also consonant to your dignities, to cast this poor mite of fervent affection and congratulation, into the rich treasury of your honourable and worshipful Patronage: being enforced hereupon to use the means of that poor man, who having neither gold nor jewels, presented both his hands full of running water to Artaxerxes. And the rather, for that I behold many precedents and pregnant demonstrations of a flourishing Springtide of happiness substituted to your predomination and government; in the constituting of necessary and requisite laws for the supplanting and depopulating of vice; and being constituted, are strictly observed and executed by your importunate industry, (which (as Caesar saith) is Fortunae Imperator, and urgeth an assent ultra vires rationis) leading this city as peaceable Conductors, (or as Theodosius did Rome) to a fruitful Autumn. For Archidamus being asked, what made the Lacedaemonian kingdom to flourish, answered: First, the laws; and next, the Magistrates observing the Laws: and Aristotle saith, that Magistratus est custos legis, also Xenophon: 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Non differt bonus Princeps à patre bono. Whereupon may be inferred, that Magistrates (as Patres patriae) ought seriously and with judicial precaution, not only to prescribe ordinances tending to the general benefit of a city or commonwealth; but also to be respective (as the father tendereth the successive fortune of his child with care and vigilancy) that they foreslow not their progression in the performance of their due execution: for Non decet principem virum totam noctem dormire, cui populi gubernacula commissasunt, & à cuius cura pendent ingentia rerum momenta. But lest any man should object against me, that I pretend by a kind of emulation and blandiloquence to adorn your merits like a Barbarian image, as Alexander was by Midius: or on the contrary, to tax me of calumniation with this inveterate Axiom: In medio tutissimus ibis: (which two, prove the Canker-worms of a flourishing country: for Diogenes the Cynic being asked, what kind of beasts are most devouring; he answered: that of tame beasts, the Flatterer, and of wild beasts, the Backbiter,) therefore so to abandon the first, as not culpable of the last, I will cleave to the golden Medium, breaking off that discourse, and cease to discuss upon such a Theme. And now to return to my old task, I humbly entreat your favourable entertainment to these my unpolished lines, being hewed out and squared by one of the meanest of Apollo's Artificers. And I the more seriously desire it, for that I am deeply resolved, they shall find a sufficient shelter under the wings of your Honourable and Worshipful names and Patronage, as under the receptacle of a strong fortified Testudo, against the yelping chaps of those snarling Zoylist's, qui potius pro consuetudine, quam proferocitate latrant, barking more for custom then cursedness: who by disgorging their mud-mixed censures upon the studious essays of particulars, (for Apollo nullos habet inimicos, nisi nimbos) do resolve with themselves by that means to win a purchase of a laureall applause, and to erect an eternal monument of reputation to themselves, upon the disgraces of other men's endeavours: but thereby proving culpable to themselves of their own ignorance, and ripping up the bowels of their imperfections and gross fatuities, in the calumniating of ingenious enterprises, and by bringing back with impudent arrogance those stolen sparks which they snatched from Apollo's sacred flames, whereby the moistened muddy motions of their brains are enforced to evaporate in a smothering heat; do appear to the world, to surpass in immanity, the Anthropophagis or Cannibals; who, though they gormandize on other men's flesh, yet will not devour themselves. Thus hoping, that these unlettered lines shall pass without disturbance under the covert of your worthy protections, I humbly entreat your Honour and Worships, to admit this poor pittance into your rich banqueting-house of acceptation and toleration, with no less willing mind, then by course of affectionate congratulation it is presented unto your hands; which, if it may find free access, I will turn my sequel essays with the turn of ensuing Time, more deeply to converse with the Muses thereby to bring forth a further manifestation of my ardent affection towards your worthy personages. In the mean time, Heavens prosper your worthy proceedings.  
London, 26. of March. 1604. Your Honour and Worships humbly devoted: John Hanson.   

The Author, and his Book.  Book. 

Help, help, alas, else am I quite undone,  
O shrowded me close from sight of these black fiends,  
Who wound with Scorpions stings: I cannot shun;  
Alas for aid, some aid, sweet gentle friends!   Aut. 

Why, how now Book, what news? what, dost thou dream?  
Or art thou quite distract, of sense bereaved?  
Or do thy Thoughts discuss on doleful Theme?   Bo. 

Yea sure, I dreamed, yet not by Dreams deceived:  
For in my Dream, me thought thou badst me post  
Through every Country, City, far and near,  
To take my lodging with each erabbed Host,  
And bear the lash of each lend Censurer.   Aut. 

Why, so thou must: then run, no time delay:  
Stand not amazed at every carping brain;  
And if thou meetest a Cynic by the way,  
If he look grim, look stern on him again.  
But if grave Cato chance to meet with thee,  
And deign on thine his judgement to suspend;  
Do thou him reverence low, with cap and knee:  
Tell him, for learned advice to him I send.   Book. 

What if proud Argas meet me in the street,  
Who robs Apollo of that sacred Fire,  
Which kindleth ardent rage in his cold spirit,  
And drives his muddie-frost-bit-Braine t'aspire:  
He'll turn me over, and toss me in his snare,  
Chopping my Subject in his snarling chaps;  
And in his turning, turn my coat threadbare,  
Within the pocket of his threadbare stops.   Aut. 

What, that starved hungry catch-pole-paper knave,  
Who ne'er durst look harsh Horace in the face?  
That stealing-Sense, that Sentence-snatching slave,  
Who feeds on fragments scraped from each place?  
What he, that doth his Brains a begging send,  
For some ragged Theme to comment on at large,  
Catching a puddle-wharfe-Discourse by th'end,  
Chants it like whorehouse tales in western Barge?  
Who he, that still his Sunburnt Sense inclines  
To turn his state, till fain to turn his purse;  
And tears his huing from lascivious lines,  
Turns Good to nought, and nought doth turn to worse?  
What he, whose Wit the whore and strumpet plays,  
Got great with child by Latins two or three;  
And then cries out, (for midwife never stays)  
Delivered of some monstrous Bastardy?   

Turn him off to the whipping-post of Time;  
Tell him, his loathsome stinking breath infects thee:  
Then turn his chaps to chop some rascal Rhyme,  
To chew some hobbling doggerel Balladrie.  
But if he swears, he'll turn thy coat with spite,  
And turn thee leaf by leaf, and line by line:  
Bid him go turn his nap-lesse coat by night,  
Who turns his coat more oft, than thou turn'st thine.   Book. 

But he that on his Satins seats his Thought,  
Sinking to hell between his Dockesies arms,  
Will turn his Foretop, swear by heaven, 'tis nought,  
As though that oath conjured, like Magic charms.   Aut. 

Turn that word (nought) down to his heart again,  
From whence that viperous term forced free access,  
Where caves of ugly venimed Snakes remain:  
There let (nought) sting his soul without redress.   Book. 

Yet will carnality, the usuring Atheist,  
The Murderer, the immane Sodomite:  
The Cruel man, and terr even Sensualist,  
Turn are my leaves and tear them in despite:  
Turn back with scorn my wholesome Counsel given,  
Turning me off, my grave advice expel.   Aut. 

Then turn them up into the hands of Heaven,  
Who'll turn them down into the chaps of hell.  
Now get thee hence, post on with turning Rhyme,  
Turning thy sense to all, thyself to pain:  
And turn thy hap to every turn of Time,  
Though to thyself returns the smallest gain.   Vade, ambula, volens justa.  

R. B. De Argumento huius Libri encomium.  
EN tibi depingit Diuúm benè gesta Libellus,  
Funcra Magnatum, lugubria Fota virorum:  
Sicvolat ipsa dies, velox ut semita Phoebi,  
Ore vorat tacito, fallitq, volubilis aetas,  
Tabida depellit, cunctus incorpore morbos:  
Instruit exemplis inopem; detorquet & aegrum.  
Vis prudens fieri, sis foelix temporis ipse  
Filius, ut renovat varios advertito motus:  
Augescunt aliae gentes, aliae minuuntur;  
Mortenigra breuner mutantur saecla animantum,  
Et quasicursores vitarum Lampada tradunt:  
Fulmine divino trepidat sic mundus iniquue.   

Libri & Authoris Encomium.  
COgitur iste Liber (mel tanquam floribus) horte  
Musaico, nitidis splendens lectisque coronis.  
Tempore sis foelix, foelix Genio quoque tempus:  
Lauriferas laudes sapiens cantabit Apollo.  
Tempure confulges, insusus Palladis arte,  
Tu quia Pernassimontes renovasque, ruinas.  
Tempore virescis, brumali tempore flores,  
Nectare perlautus, hauslisq, Aganyppidis undis.  
Tempore, frendit Aper, ringitq, Lupus, Leo rugit,  
Tu tamen in mundo, ut splendet, lucebis, Eóus:  
Tempora temporibus transuertis tabida firmis:  
Foelici viridis decoret te tempore laurus.  
T. G.   

To the judicial Reader.  

I write not of victorious Hannibal,  
Of Rome's old murdered sons, nor Pompey's fall,  
Of valiant Hector, nor Achilles' shield,  
Burning Vesuvius, nor th' Elysian field;  
Nor of huge armstrong Hercul's Iôle:  
Of lone-sicke Attis, nor beauteous Danaë,  
To whom (she prisoned in a mured Tower)  
Old Saturn's son reigned down the silver shower:  
Nor of Ioues conquering heir, nor Pryaps bed,  
Nor of the sports of wanton Ganymede.  
But of that Fair, the fairest of Earth's Fair,  
To whom in troops supernal Nymphs repair:  
A shining Diamond, a radiant Bright,  
Which in earth's Centre yieldeth clearest Light:  
A precious Pearl, clear as Aurora's Sun,  
Whose hote-reflecting beams will not be done:  
A glorious Star, to Heaven and Earth combined,  
The brightest Gem that ere in Albion shined.  
Of height, of depth, of earth, of heaven, of hell,  
Of ugly monsters, shapes that do excel:  
Ofioy, of woe, of horror, mirth, and fear,  
Of restless Motions whirled about the Sphere,  
And turned circumferent with Typhonian Time:  
Thus Time hath tasked me to a turning Rhyme.   

Two ardent Passions kindled by Desire,  
Within my breast at once began t'aspire:  
Grief bade me write, but joy strait answered, nay:  
joy bade me sing, than Grief advised me stay:  
Grief waxed pale, while joy more stern did show,  
joy sprightly stood, Grief scorned the overthrow.  
Thus joy and Grief, striving with adverse spite,  
Twixt Grief and joy, I framed my pen to write:  
For turncoat Time perforce directs my quill,  
To urge it sing consorting to his will.   

But sith my Muse wants that Heroic spirit,  
In stately strains to eternize their merit;  
Projects herself to graver judgements sight,  
Catching swift-winged Time on instant flight.  
If smooth-tongued Caliop these lines peruse,  
The want of Age doth want of Art excuse:  
My head's engird with ivy, not with bay,  
Ordained for deeper wits, that merit praise.  
Friendly scan all, yet scandalise me not,  
With the detracting Tongue of every Sot.  
If well, then censure well, if ill, dispraise it;  
Yet would I know, if he be wise that says it.   
Nec Momum nec Mimum metuo.   

TIME Is a Turncoat: OR England's threefold Metamorphosis. Post tristia, Leta.  
Panàite Pierides vestro sacra ostia vati.  

YE foul-faced Furies which the Stygian keep,  
Ye grizzly Fiends of the Cymmerian deep,  
Ye helhounds droop, and howl in sulphured caves;  
Stand ye amazed grim Pluto's damned slaves;  
Rise up from torrid lakes, and gaze afar;  
Lo! Earth presents to Heaven a glistering Star.   

Ye Powers divine which in the heau'nsare fixed;  
Ye Spirits that with the wandering stars are mixed:  
Conjoin in one ye Spheres celestial:  
Ye Muses nine, perform this Funeral;  
Condole her death, whose glorious life was so,  
As by her life, her death was freed from woe:  
Whose life replete with grace, exempt from strife;  
Whose death's transformed to never-dying life.   

Cynthia, fair Sister to black lady Night,  
That Gehon's streams with golden Icons dight;  
To whom heavens signior Lights proffer their duty,  
For thy surpassing and refulgent Beauty:  
Renounce thy borrowed Shine, revoke thy race,  
With clouds of Languishment remaske thy face.  
Sad Melpomen with tragic Scenes relent  
Each Marble rock and obdurated Flint:  
Sigh forth deep accents of thy sacred Love,  
To cause the stonie-hearted Savage move:  
Strain out Threnodiae, thy assidual note,  
For Time hath robed himself with sable Coat.  
Ye sacred Nymphs hang down your Sun-bright hairs  
Bedew your cheeks with penitential tears:  
Conduct me to some solitary Cell,  
Wherein I may with pale-faced Sorrow dwell.   

Alas, my Muse doth faint ere she proceed,  
To tune Enconiums on a mournful Reed:  
Wise Calliope, sweet Queen of Eloquence,  
Inspire her Thoughts with sacred influence.  
Take courage (Muse) pure Zeal shall stand thy bar,  
Look not aghast on every frowning Star:  
Pluck up thy spirit from pitchy Acheron:  
Solace amidst the fields of Helicon:  
Now bathe thyself in the Pierian spring,  
Where thy sad Sisters mournfully do sing:  
Go seek that Phoenix mounted in the sky,  
Transformed to ever-during Dignity;  
The Phoenix of our age, Earth's only Fair,  
Faith's Empress, and heavens high glorious Hair:  
England's Phoenix admired for Rarity,  
For Beauty, Virtue, and pure Chastity:  
O she's consumed with heavens resplendent Light,  
That from her ashes one might rise as bright,  
And flourish forth upon the verdant ground,  
Whose parallel in Art is scarcely found.  
Why strives my Muse to stellify her name?  
The bright-eyed-wondring world divulged her fame;  
And Fame itself flies swiftly from her nest,  
To blaze her honour from the East to West.  
Sad Sickness, the pale Harbinger of Death,  
Foredoomed the loss of Syrinx daughter's breath:  
Black furious Fate, that wrought such deep despite,  
To lock fair Phoebe from Endymion's sight;  
I mean Eliza: o write that name again,  
That with revolving Time it may remain:  
Eliza, she who was profound in Art,  
Is now struck dead with Thanatos his dart;  
Eliza, who in many dangers stood,  
For Gods high glory, and her subjects good:  
By her, th'incarnate Gospel was possessed;  
Through her, all Britain's Isle jehova blest;  
For her, the heavens reigned down such plenteous store,  
As Nature's greedy Sons could wish no more.  
Honour embraced her, Art by her did stand,  
Prudence attended on her genius hand,  
justice in Mercy with her bare the sway,  
Glory infinite her last Catastrophé.   

The fatal Sisters jointly have decreed,  
Old Atropos should cut that vital thread,  
Which co-unites the Substance with the Soul;  
Numbing each Sense with leane-chapt Death's control.  
This state is incident to Nature's lot;  
Drawn through the world in Times still chariot,  
With two unruly Steeds, and hurled along  
By restless Motion and Mutation:  
At length they leave her on Death's dismal stage:  
As being weary of their carriage:  
Then his grim Sergeant comes without control,  
T'arrest her body, disunite her soul:  
He takes no bribes, but strikes (impartial)  
The Beggar, Baron, Caitiff, King, and all.  
If Death had feared to stop astraea's breath,  
Then had he spared Queen Elizabeth:  
Whose soul is now enthronised 'bove the skies,  
Where glorious Cherub's sing her Exequys:  
Through Ioues broad milk-white path now is she gone,  
And stately royalized on Angel's throne:  
The silver Vault with Epods deep resounds,  
Of her rare Virtue which on Earth abounds.  
I wish Eliza from us could not pass,  
Who made each place a heaven wherein she was.   

Th'almighty jove so locked Virginity  
From Antidotes and baneful Treachery,  
That burning poison ne'er effected harm,  
Although confected with a Magic charm.  
How many treasons, direful accidents,  
Base-bred complots and experiments,  
Conspired her death; yet still preserved was she  
By heavens eternal Triple-Vnitie?  
How many strived to stop Eliza's breath?  
Yet (to their shame) she died a living death;  
For which we laud th'immortal Deity,  
Who mixeth joy with sad calamity.  
Her fame on earth is painted by all Seven,  
Her corpse in Lead, her soul a Saint in heaven.  
Eliza lived, now is Eliza dead,  
And David raised in her Angelic stead;  
she's quite extinct, yet hath she left behind  
The true Idaa of her princely mind;  
Right royal JAMES, the Britons gracious King,  
Whose honour through the circling Globe doth ring.  
The Rose is cropped which glisteren in each face,  
And yet as fair sprung instantly in place:  
A Rose most sweet and odoriferous,  
A Rose of grace to cheer and comfort us;  
A Rose that springeth in a Northern blast,  
A Rose whose lustre doth in Winter last.  
O Wonder: that rough Boreas dropping wing,  
Should waft such showers to a desired Spring!   

England, prostrate thyself with folded hands,  
(Whose joys are numberless even as the sands)  
Before the powerful and almighty Throne,  
Who gave regard unto thy grievous moan,  
Sending to thee such an Athenian King,  
Whose learning is the round Orbs wondering:  
A sovereign Balm unto thy corrosive;  
Which did thy half-dead-wounded heart revive,  
When Phoebus' Lute tuned his mournful note,  
To make Time turn his glistering golden cote.   

Courageous Cato with his warlike trains,  
While ranged in rank upon the champion plains,  
Sweet-breathed Zephyrus up softly blew  
The fragrant flowers which in meadows grew,  
Upon their glittering targets: then they cried:  
Aglorious Triumph shall to us betide.  
Even so the Flowers of fruitful Brittany,  
(Blown with the wind of zealous Loyalty)  
Did congregate in troops, proclaimed a King,  
Whose name once heard, most gladsome joy did bring.   

When glorious Titan hath his compass run,  
The foule-maskt gloomy Night ensues thereon;  
Bright Sol declined, Luna skips in the sky,  
Approved by Nature in Philosophy.  
jehova derogated England's Light,  
And yet pursued no dusky darksome Night;  
No sooner Britain had her bright-Eye lost,  
But strait another gazed from Northern coast:  
No sooner did Eliza take her flight,  
But instantly king JAMES appeared in sight:  
For whom true hearts render immortal praise  
To high jehova, who this Star did raise  
To yield them light, to stand their sovereign Lord,  
And Patron pure of the soul-saving word.  
(O blessed Time, when peerless Princes preach,  
When David doth his son God's precepts teach!)  
He is the sense-concluding Period  
Of England's solace, charactered by God;  
The pure quintessence of her flourishing state,  
To whom her life is worthy subjugate.  
O what a learned Varro hath she gained,  
(Who moved blithe Gelos even when hearts complained)  
A Cicero for flowing Eloquence,  
A valiant Caesar for Magnificence.  
Don Phoebus rising from his scarlet bed,  
Out of his eastern Closet thrust his head;  
Spreading his flame-haired broad vermilion locks,  
Upon the earth, the sea, the trees and rocks;  
Espied a fairer shining here below,  
Plucked in his head, no more his face durst show.   

Now England, England, shake off sad annoy,  
Thy forts are full replenished with joy;  
Let all thy Turrets glister in the air,  
Thy Fair not turned to fowl, but Fowl to fair.  
Now boast thyself amidst thy summers Pride,  
Thy Ebbe's transformed into a flowing Tide  
Of Mirth and Gladness: honour God for ay,  
Who turned thy Night into a Sunshine Day.  
What greater graces to thee could he bring,  
Then grace thy Land with such a gracious King?  
Who lends an ear to every clients cry,  
Decides his case with princely Gravity.  
Lycurgus-like hath he prescribed his laws,  
To keep poor Codrus out of Croesus' jaws;  
He secure sends to all oppressed by Might,  
Defends true Irus, and maintains his right.  
By him thou reap'st the wished fruits of peace;  
And for his sake God gives thee huge increase  
Of thy fat harvest and thy wel-tiled fields,  
Thy withered Plants do bud, and blossom yields.  
For Phoebus' Lute descants a gladsome note,  
Whereat Time skips, and turns his sable Coat.   

What if th' Almighty had stretched out his hand,  
To scourge Impiety within thy Land;  
And razed thy walls with flat confusion,  
With civil broils and proud Rebellion.  
Then had thy famous Cities gone to wrack,  
And every town been subject to the sack:  
Then Rigour would have ruled and borne the sway,  
Reason exiled and banished quite away.  
Then would the mother dread her dreadless child:  
Then spotless virgins would have been defiled.  
All these (O London) to thy extreme pain,  
With present spoil wert likely to sustain:  
Then hadst thou languished in th'effusion  
Of bloody murder and occision:  
Then Phoebus' Lute a Threnos would have strained;  
And Time with tears his golden vestments stained.  
Me think I hear the wailful weeping cries,  
Of wretched Dames in dreadful miseries:  
Me think I hear the thundering Canons sound,  
Whose bullets 'gainst the battered walls rebound:  
Me think I see huge troops of glistering shields,  
And coursing Palfreys trampling o'er the fields:  
Me think I see how soldiers wounded lie  
With gasping breath, and yet they cannot die.  
But heavens great King to thee propitious,  
In am of Mars sent graces wondrous;  
Permitting still his Light to shine with thee,  
That thou mightst walk in perspicuity.   

Rome's Minotaur, that monstrous enemy  
To brave Britannia's peerless Progeny;  
In rancour guzled for his annual food,  
T'imbrue his throat with Innocency's blood;  
Whetting his black exacuated fangs,  
To murder sacred souls with torturing pangs:  
Till Albion's Theseus with his conquering hand,  
Redeemed her state from tributary band;  
And slew this Beast distent with ireful fell,  
Grappling with death in his prodigious cell:  
By Ioues decree reduced her Babes away,  
So won the love of heavens Pasiphaë.   

Adopted England, sweet Elysian I'll,  
Observe, how God reviewes with a smile;  
Accumulates a sympathy of joy,  
To countervail thy late-sustained annoy.   

Remember, that twice twenty winters told,  
Thou never tastedst of that freezing cold,  
And indigence of true Religion,  
To thee obliged by perfect union:  
Mercy hath set a supersedeas free  
On justice, which convicts Iniquity:  
So loath is Heaven to take revenge of sin,  
Grants thee more spacious walks to solace in;  
Revives thy sapless Trees which withering died,  
Thy walls of Grace with Truth reediside.   

Even as the Parent educates his child,  
By obsecrations and corrections mild,  
To fraught his soul with filial reverence,  
Extenuates Rigour by sweet Indulgence:  
Yet still if he progress in lusts content,  
Then he inflicts a triple punishment.  
So doth th'almighty powerfully entice  
Thy feet to walk in heavens fair Paradise,  
And fosters thee with nursing milk of life,  
Which yields an end to endless terrene strife.  
His glorious eye, Scrutator of thy heart,  
Delighting not to view thy ruthless smart;  
Protracts revenge to thy affection's lust,  
As though the judge forgetteth to be just.   

Numbers of days hast thou possessed the light  
Of his pure Gospel in thee shining bright;  
And now t'enrich thee from his treasure's store,  
Hath caused it shine far clearer than before.  
Yet still thou liest in dark Obscurity,  
Wrapped in the depth of Sensuality;  
Repugnantly, with Aesop's frozen Snake,  
Rejects his mercies and his grace forsake:  
Spurning the Clemency which he hath shown,  
To monstrous crimes & deep transgressions known  
And most perspicuous to his piercing Eye,  
Vindicta's battering 'gainst the lofty sky.  
Thou suffered'st Virtue in thine iron age,  
To tread the lonelesse path to Hermitage:  
For which his heavy judgement forth did fly,  
To countercheck that great Solemnity,  
Which thou esteemedst at so high a rate,  
And consonant with King's renowned state;  
far dissonant to thy expected Fame,  
Who still aspires to dignify her name.  
Consider how he hath stretched out his hand,  
To scourge the mother-city of thy land,  
Breaking her sinews by divine Pretence,  
With fiery shafts of fever Pestilence:  
Withered her Flowers with blasting-venim'daire,  
Driving her up-growne Trees to trembling Fear.  
His arrows sharp in every corner fly,  
And every street did wound outrageously;  
In fury smiting father, son, andall,  
None could eschew the stroke of sudden fall.   

Even as the Tigress ravening for her food,  
In furious rage doth range alongst the wood;  
Who in some darksome den hath long been penned  
From meat and sustenance, which makes herrent  
And tear the next she meeteth by the way,  
As nothing partial, so she gains a prey.  
Even so this Plague, the Tigress fierce of heaven,  
Such lethal wounds, such large assaults have given;  
Consuming, severing, midst the hugest throng,  
The youth from age, the aged from the young:  
Insatiatly devoured in every place;  
None could persist fore her contagious face.   

O heavy England, now behold and see,  
Thy Beauty stricken with the leprosy  
Of blasphemies, embraced without regard:  
To whom the Lord hath sent a just reward.  
Thy grievous sins with dreadful noise did cry  
For just Revenge unto his Majesty;  
Who can both strike and heal, preserve and wound,  
Erect thy walls, or raze them to the ground.  
How many wonders for thee hath he wrought?  
How many heavenly Lessons thee hath taught  
T'assuage thy arrogance, suppress thy hate?  
Yet still thou standest in a fearful state.   

As he reduced his chosen Israel,  
From savage cruelties of Egypt's fell;  
When they were plunged in perils dangerous,  
At his command (O wonder marvelous)  
On either side the barking billows stood,  
Whilst that they marched through the briny flood,  
When their pursuing foes would them have slain,  
Were overwhelmed amidst the troubled Main:  
Yet did they murmur in the Wilderness,  
As too ungrateful for their rare success.  
But heavens just judge incensed with wrathful ire,  
powered forth his plagues upon their vain desire;  
While they took repast on their lustful will,  
Vile venomous beasts their graver age did kill.  
Even thus (o England) God hath dealt with thee,  
Conducting thee through seas of misery;  
Redeemed thy Race from rage of foreign spoil,  
Casting thy foes to base-dishonored foil:  
Yet all these graces not incite thy heart,  
With humbleness to cure thy cureless smart;  
Demurs thy days in dilatory care  
Of worldly lusts, which Heaven will never spare:  
But in thy height of pomp and jollity,  
The massacring Angel came to visit thee;  
Slaughtering thy people with revengeful sword,  
The Harbinger of Death sent from the Lord.   

These sad events arose and came to pass,  
As it befell to old Diagoras;  
Who when his sons th' Olympian games had won,  
Casting their garlands in their Trophies done  
About his neck: the men's applauding voice,  
And rare delight did make his heart rejoice:  
But while his soul replete with cheerful grace,  
Was stung by Death ere he moved from the place.  
Even so whilst thou in Pleasure's gardens stood,  
Thy silver lakes were turned to brooks of blood;  
Thy floods of joys were turned to seas of tears,  
And lightsome Mirth to interrupting Fears.  
Thus cast from top of climbing Dignity,  
Into the depth of darkest misery;  
The hungry Earth devoured thee up, alas,  
As Corah, Dathan, and Abiram was:  
Thy Anthems, Trophies, and thy Excellence,  
Were swallowed up by starved Pestilence:  
Thou wert consumed with Death on every side,  
As bold Belshazzar was amidst his pride.  
Nought but Threnodiae danced amidst thy throng,  
Whereat Time wet his cheeks, and slunk along.   

Corrupted London, Sink of Surquedry,  
Thou that supports this yoke of misery,  
Imposed upon thee by th'almighty Lord,  
For the rejecting of his sacred word.  
His Minaces brought no remorse to thee;  
But sleptst secure in beds of Luxury,  
Feeding thy Will with Pleasures lustful beite,  
Did cast thy Soul the husks of sly Deceit.   

The Prophet jonah, Troubler of the sea,  
Sent by heavens King to sinful Ninive:  
So soon as he approached her streets so wide,  
With vehement speech in vengeful spirit cried:  
O Niniveh, thy monstrous facts avoid,  
In forty days else shalt thou be destroyed.  
Then King and Commons jointly did agree,  
With humbled hearts and zealous fervency,  
In mourning sackcloth seriously to pray  
The world's chief judge, his burning wrath to stay:  
(The brutish Animals which harmless be,  
Were taxed with this general penalty)  
With bleeding souls and dreary countenance,  
The glory of the Highest did advance;  
Sincerely turning to Submission,  
That he might turn from them Destruction:  
So sweet atonement Mournings did afford,  
Restrained the stroke of his two-edged sword.   

Not forty days, but forty years and more,  
(Wherein thou mightst thy grievous sins deplore)  
Thousands of jonahs' sent by heavens great Lord,  
In thee resolved to preach his sacred word.  
Bonarges thundering in every street;  
Thy deafe-charmed sins would not his voice regret;  
But Mole-like plunged in slavish Lust's content,  
On which the Lord inflicts a punishment.   

As wise Martha, the Syrian Prophetess,  
With Marius carried through his wars success;  
By Necromancy in her Sacrifice,  
Presaged the trophies of his victories:  
But once not tolerating her advice,  
He bought the day (too dear) with bloody price.  
So God hath sent his Angels from above,  
Still to be resident with his sacred love;  
Preaching the tidings of celestial joy,  
Which wars nor pestilence can ere destroy:  
He conquered Death, and in his conquering brought  
Life in thy death; yet thou setst him at nought:  
Till he in wrath thy stubbornness convicts:  
On grievous sins, most grievous plagues inflicts.   

Fowl noisome crimes in every corner swarm,  
Deadly-infectious wickedness doth harm:  
In every house and loose-led Families,  
Are fostered up these dainned enormities;  
These take their place as chief, commanding all  
Amongst thy precepts Economical:  
Pride, Murder, Avarice, Usury, Deceit,  
With savage Sodomy, hell's alluring bait;  
Blasting Blasphemy, Rape and Cruelty:  
These are the Actors in thy Tragedy:  
Shrouding Tractates of viperous Popery,  
Under the shades of civil Policy,  
Rejects the tidings of heavens Messengers,  
And quite subverts the sacred Ministers.   

Thy Widows mourn oppressed by cruel might:  
Thy Orphans weep, disfranchised of their right:  
Thy Trades Mechanical are taxed so high  
With Rent and Lease they fall to penury:  
With craft thou grindst the faces of the poor,  
To feed thee fat, while they starve at thy door.  
Thou sit'st in silk and costly soft array,  
And views thy brother perishing in the way,  
With pinching cold lie shivering on the ground;  
To sow him coats no Dorcas can be found.  
When thou perceivest thy friend's Extremity  
Traduced to Want by Fortune's casualty:  
Nescio, thou ' criest, no Mercy canst thou show,  
No streams of Pity from thy heart will flow:  
To his penurious Lack no succours sends:  
When wealth declines, thy flattering friendship ends.   

Xanthippus dog condemns thy savageness,  
Who, when his master journeyed on the seas,  
Swum by his ship even from the shoarie sand,  
Till he arrived in Salamina's land;  
And left him not till he the city spied,  
With wearied limbs then laid him down and died.  
Thy Friend thou leavest in his deep Distress,  
Wrapped in the waves of endless Carefulness:  
Scorning Compassion, no Comfort bring;  
But as the Swallow, Herald of the Spring,  
Will sing with us while summers beauty lasts;  
But takes her flight when Winter breath's his blasts.  
So while his Sommers-flourishing wealth doth flow,  
Most firm in Friendship thou thyself wilt show;  
And wilt converse in smooth-framed words each day,  
Thy tongue pronounce supposed apocrypha:  
When Fortunes freezing frowns benumb his store,  
Thou art a Stranger, he thy Friend no more.  
Thus weakest Wants the smallest Succours gain,  
The nakedst Need the latest Helps obtain:  
How true is that which may be answered then?  
More kindness oft is shown by Dogs, the Men.   

Thou studiest still Invention to suffice,  
And deckest thyself like Protean Prodigies,  
In monstrous shapes, and garish rude attire,  
Devotees thy soul to swelling Prides desire;  
In worldy joys consumest every day,  
With Zeal affording scarce an hour to pray.  
That crystal Ice, which lends my body light,  
Hath been dissolved to tears, deprived of sight;  
My heartstrings broke with dolorous complaint,  
My soul hath mourned in forcible constraint;  
When I have ambulated longest the street,  
And oft this Monster have I chanced to meet:  
A Britain borne, bedight Castilian-wise,  
A Ganle in shape, a Thuscane in disguise;  
His bravery lined with envious Pride; at least  
A Man in form, in facts a brutish Beast.  
O that 
* Semper lachrimabat.  Heraclitus were resident,  
To power forth streams of tears in sad lament,  
For Albion's virgins, who from Grace do slide,  
Surpassing Zions Daughters in their pride;  
Prides shop itself full fraught with Foppery,  
May patterns draw from their Variety.  
As Helen's shape, (the woeful wrack of Troy)  
Was bravely limned by Apelles' boy,  
In rich attire, and sumptuous shining gold;  
Yet foul in face, not amorous to behold.  
So some resemble Helen's picture here,  
That bigly brag in gorgeous garments dear;  
But nothing beautiful to Reason's eye,  
Patch the defects of Nature's poverty;  
Adorn with silks, infuse them with perfumes,  
Like jetting birds bedecked with others plumes.   

How canst thou think (thy sins grown up so high)  
With hapless hope t'escape Impunity?  
Canst thou resolve, that God will spare his hand,  
To view such Hydra's fostered in thy Land?  
No, no, his Wrath consumes like smoking fire,  
Thou liest as Flax before his burning ire;  
He'll crop thee of from full Maturity,  
And cast thee forth to bitter Misery.  
At his command, the sword shall ruinate,  
Thy gates shall mourn, and streets be desolate,  
Thy City groan, enthralled with deep distress,  
And Limb howl within thy Palaces:  
satires and Apes shall dance within thy bowers,  
Ostriges and Scrich owls cry in ruinous towers:  
No voice of man on thy walls shalt thou hear,  
Nor light of lamp in any house appear.  
heavens grant thy heart t'affect and fear this so,  
As that thou never feel or taste this Wo.   

Thy children dear in their quotidian sport,  
Blasphemously the name of God extort;  
Their battering oaths against the heavens rebound;  
This hideous noise in house and street doth sound.  
They scoff Elisha in decrepit age,  
With arrogance revile the grave and sage;  
Till jove sent forth a she-Beare from his wood,  
To gormandize on their decocted blood.  
How earnestly thou strivest (for their defence)  
To curb them from contagious Pestilence;  
For their soul's health thou never takest care:  
Such as the Parents, such the Children are.   

Thy Tradesmen watch to undermine each other,  
And early rise to cirumvent their brother,  
In buying, selling, trafficking for gains;  
By which poor Truth impoverishment sustains.  
Thy headstrong Servants impudently stray  
From sin to sin, upon the Sabbath day,  
Heaping up Mischiefs on themselves and thee,  
Pluck on their heads earths just Calamity.  
These are the swords of Desolation,  
These are the Agents in subversion,  
These are contagious Plagues, diseased, foul;  
These are the sores and botches of thy soul,  
These are ordures which noisomeness afford  
Up to the nostrils of the glorious Lord:  
These are the Scourges of thy lewd offence;  
These are th'Inductors of heavens Pestilence.   

O London, then what terror wert to see  
Thy streets exempt of popularities?  
And nought but cries and doleful horrors yield,  
O'ergrown with grass as in the verdant field:  
The master from his servant snatched away,  
The servant from his master bearing sway:  
The children fatherless each where were found,  
The father's childless in deep Dolour drowned:  
The husband from his neare-espoused wife,  
The trustful friend bereaved of his life:  
No kinsman scaping to inter his brother,  
Not one scarce left to mourn and weep for other.   

Thy tender Virgins sprung from Nature's grace,  
(Who once adorned and beautified the face  
Of all thy streets, with roseal visage bright,  
As splendent Stars, a clear and glorious Night:)  
Besmeared their pure and proper Lineaments,  
With scalding Sighs, and pitiful Complaints:  
Their Feature decked with diffidentall Fears,  
And drowned in salt uncessant-flowing Tears.  
Thy Youth howled out, amazed themselves to see  
Bereft of Vigour and Validity.  
Thy ramparts moulned, thy gates condoled their state,  
Because no stranger ingress sought thereat,  
To view thy stately Towers at solemn Feasts,  
Replenished then with Owls and loathsome Beasts.  
Thy paths breathed sighs which did untrampled lie,  
No huge Recourse or Concourse walked thereby;  
Nor scarce one foot-step figured on their face,  
But clinging Brambles did usurp their place.  
Thy streets which once with gloriousness did show,  
Kneeled as Homagers to solitary We;  
Where noble States obtained most free access,  
Resembled then the vast of Wilderness.  
Thyself dist weep, yea weep in mournful wise,  
And fair Aurora visited with thy cries,  
And from thy bitter anguish could not cease,  
When Vesper drew to his declining ease.  
Each bird and beast with tranquil sleep possessed,  
When Night appeared, embraced their usual rest:  
But thou consumdst the day in deep Complaints,  
Disturbdst the night with loathsome Languishments;  
Thy Eyes like two deep Fountains ay did run,  
Whose briny springs and streams could not be done.  
Thy friends admired at thy diseases fowl,  
As fluttring birds fly wondering 'bout the Owl:  
Amidst thy griefs thy Lovers thee forsake,  
Fled from thy sight, as from an Asp or Snake:  
Thy foes rejoiced at this confusion,  
Using these terms with proud derision:  
Is this that Mirror, reverenced with duty?  
Surnamed, The full perfection of BEAUTY?  
Then hissed with hate, and clapped their hands to see  
Thy Glory spurned by pale Perplexity.  
Thus Woe was drawn thy badge, and Want thy crest,  
And hungry Famine did thy skirts invest:  
(For she's the handmaid of Calamity,  
Attending still on common Misery.)  
Thy tender infants young did gasp half-dead  
In mother's arms, for indigence of bread:  
Thy worthy Magistrates high-grown in age,  
Expected viols of Ioues ardent rage,  
To be poured forth upon them from above,  
To notattending on his sacred love.  
grizzly Thanatos slinked through each street,  
Waiting t'arrest each person he did meet;  
Dragging him headlong to his centred cave,  
Out of whose mouth no man himself can save:  
In harsh discordant sound each baneful Bell,  
Rung forth a Requiem with his doleful knell:  
No Prospect opposite to thy bleared eyes,  
But horrors, howl, mournings, weep, cries.  
These are external Plagues to secret sin,  
And most transparent to entrap thee in;  
O these will drive each heart to hideous groans,  
Though most inflexible, as flinty stones.   

The constellation of the twinkling stars,  
Nor the four Humours with discordant jars;  
The revolution of Comets bright,  
Nor corrupt Meteors blasting in the night;  
Nor yet the welking of a Pleni-lune,  
From whence, some do the cause of death assume:  
Nor distillations exhaled by the Sun,  
Falling in mists, when Vesper hath begun  
To draw his sable Curtains o'er the sky,  
Could be th'Efficient of this Misery.  
No secondary Cause, nor all of these,  
Discussed at large in Ephymerides:  
These are but Means, managed by heavens great King,  
Though without means he comprehends each thing:  
Alas, the venom of thy soul's offence,  
Poisoned thy flesh with viperous Pestilence.   

physicians Skill, nor Galens' learned Art,  
To whom the heavens deep Secrecies impart,  
Could rightly censure, or discern with eye,  
The nature of this venomous Quality.  
Strange are thy plagues, far stranger are thy crimes,  
Most strangely nourished in these modern Times.  
Therefore the thought of this devouring Smart,  
With fear may penetrate each Christians heart:  
Deep sad Remorse may aggravate each one,  
To wail his sins with sad Contrition;  
T'admire this Plague with lamentation,  
Lament in faith with admiration;  
Deeming his age the length of Nature's span,  
A Monarch now, to morrow not a man..   

Thou that didst fly from heavens consuming spoil,  
To stand secure within the country's soil,  
Know, that this Plague devoured from East to West,  
God striketh where, and when he seemeth best.  
The thirsty Sword doth watch without the gate,  
Within the walls fierce Peftilence lays wait,  
And boundless Famine which tormenteth all;  
No path lies strait to shun their deadly thrall.  
Thy firme-built walls, thy viands, house and ground,  
Wherein thou wertst enveloped around;  
Thy purged Airs, and pleasant Palaces,  
Could not protect thee from this dark Distress.  
If thou shouldst run up to the mountains steep,  
Down to the wilderness and deserts deep,  
Resolving there to dwell secure and free;  
He can pursue thee there with Misery:  
His Messengers more volatile than Thought,  
Before thou canst think, such Accidents are wrought:  
In Zions Songs than David singeth well:  
Heaven can o'ertake me if I run to hell.   

When thou resolud'st by flight to scape his hand,  
Thy life and state in deepest dangers stand.  
Like the Viator traveling by the way,  
Who meets a Bear out-ranging for her prey,  
Through urgent passions shifteth from her claws:  
Then strait a Lion comes with wide-stretched jaws,  
To lacerate his flesh, imbrued with gore,  
Which strikes a deeper terror than before.  
Yet by good hap plevents the Lion's rage;  
And then with joy holds on his pilgrimage:  
But drawing near to his abiding place,  
(Fore-deeming not the Fates pursued in chase)  
When least he thought of such a timeless smart,  
A Serpent's sting doth wound him to the heart.  
So when thou thinkst to sleep in safest rest,  
Then art thou by God's judgements most suppressed:  
His sword can wound both woman, child, and man,  
From North to South, from Bersheba to Dan;  
'tis like a Shadow which a man eschews,  
Swifter he runs, the faster it pursues.   

Thou great Soldado, earth's Magnifico,  
That conquers joy by Lazarello's woe,  
Heaping up gold by each deceitful way,  
Resolving still that thou shalt live for ay;  
At first, thou sprangst from a small womb of Sin,  
At last, a little grave shall close thee in:  
Thou gripping fool, the Pestilence this night,  
Can wound thy corpse, and burn thy heart's delight.   

When king Lisymachus, through Fortune's hate,  
By thirst projected to the Scythians state,  
And captivated with his kingdoms all;  
O heavens (quoth he) how dreadful is my fall,  
To yield great Provinces and regal seat,  
For liquid drops to quench my thirsty heat.  
So when thou rifest from eternal sleep,  
And views heavens glory from the coal-black Deep:  
Then wilt thou cry: O wretched creature I,  
To lose such joys for carnal Vanity;  
For momentany Pleasures which decay,  
To miss heavens Grace, so permanent for ay!  
Then look to Heaven, whilst thou on Earth dost dwell,  
And not (with Dives) when thou liest in Hell.  
Too late, alas, to wish heavens glorious Light,  
When thou art wrapped in black eternal Night;  
When Time turns off his particoloured cote,  
Thy soul in hell must howl a mournful note.   

Thou Usurer, which Penury dost rack,  
And surfeits in thy needful neighbours lack;  
Thy debtor watch with care, while thou dost sleep;  
Thy State sings Requiem, while their Senses weep:  
In nightly lucubrations spend their hours  
To puff thy Sponge, which all the drops devours,  
Distilling from their brows with burdenous grief;  
Not able scarce to minister relief  
Unto their children dear and family:  
Because thou suckest (with the sluggish Bee)  
That Mel, which they in harbouring hives would keep;  
Clothing thy back, with wool from their poor sheep.  
What's this, but even to kill and trucidate?  
And all man-slaughtrers, God and Angels hate.  
Thy state is matched with Lilies in the field,  
Which flourish now, and strait to withring yield:  
Though thou in terrene Shadows didst excel,  
Yet shall not Gold redeem thy soul from hell.  
Then let this Sentence in thy sense remain,  
The sweetest Pleasures taste the sourest Pain:  
Quodque tibi nolles, aliis fecisse caveto:  
Quodque tibi velles, aliis praestare studeto.   

Thou ravening Vulture, gormandizing Kite,  
Thou greedy Wolf, which builds thy chief Delight  
On dross, and drinks the blood of Perjury,  
Feeding upon the flesh of Cruelty:  
Whose deep-delved throat of Gain devours more food  
Than do the Amazons or Styrian brood.  
Thy dropsie-Conscience swelled with moist Desire,  
The more it drinks, the more doth still require:  
Hunger torments thee midst abundant store,  
Thou staru'st in Wealth, in Riches still art poor:  
Like Tantalus which in the Stygian lies,  
And sinks in water, yet for moisture dies:  
Like drudging Indians, which dig with pain  
The golden Mines, yet others reap the gain:  
Or Pharaohs Kine, who gormandized up clean  
The fat-fed Beasts, yet still themselves were lean.  
The Day thou spendest in turmoiling pain,  
Selling thy soul for temporary gain;  
In deep of Night, thy mind extravagates,  
And wanders through the perilous gulfs and straights  
Of Ne're-enough; when good men take their rest,  
Thy restless Thoughts are tossed, with cares possessed:  
Still pining Piety, so lean in thee,  
As is the big-boned bare Anatomy.  
Thou plantest thorns in thy souls barren field,  
Which nought but griefs and molestations yield;  
Whereby not only Equity is choked,  
And Virtue extirpated and revoked;  
But also stinging pricks spring sharp and small,  
That thou thy self art wounded therewithal:  
Yet thou perceivest not, All goes well with thee,  
So thou canst please thy heart's rapacity,  
Which is insatiate as Fire and Flood,  
The last drinks Rain, the first devours the Wood:  
Or big-boned Behemoth with vigour fraught,  
Who thought t'exhale deep jordan at a draft.  
Thus dost thou sing amidst thy weeping woes,  
As mules who feed with burdens and with blows:  
What else remains, thy senses never see,  
(Profoundly cast into a Lethargy  
Of deepe-Desire) till Death appears in sight,  
rousing from sleep thy solide-slumbring spirit.  
O then how fearful will it seem to thee,  
To be secluded from earth's Vanity!  
Thy death will be far terribler than hell,  
Because in life, true Life thou didst dispel:  
Most gripping griefs and dolours shalt thou find,  
To lose Earth's Idol, which thou leau'ft behind.   

And when the Sunset of thy youth draws near,  
And occidental Age begins t'appear,  
Those ill-got goods, which Avarice did intend  
To be preserved, lewd Luxury shall spend;  
That wealth whereon thy mouth did never taste,  
Unthrifty Ganeo shall consume and waste.  
Thus doth thy sin incur a double sin,  
Whereto thy soul (fore heavens great Bar brought in)  
Shall answer as a thirsty Murderer,  
A swallowing Gulf, a deep Extortioner.  
Not all that wealth which thou hast falsely won,  
Can bail thy soul from fiery Phlegeton;  
But will condemn thee in that dreadful Day,  
And glutinate thy Soul with Hell for ay.  
O damned wretch, then fearful is thy state:  
These words pronounced, Repentance haps too late:  
Abi, thou cursed to eternal fire,  
Embrace the flames of due-deserued hire.  
Then know: though ne'er so sweet Earth's Sirens sing,  
An upright Conscience is a sacred Thing.  
As worms cannot corrode the Laryx tree,  
Which never rots, nor scarce can burned be;  
So neither Hell nor Horror, Worm nor Sting,  
Can fret thy Conscience guarded strong within.   

Thou that in Sickness thy sins deplore,  
That never did embrace good Thought before,  
Orat the object of a blazing Star,  
Foredooming, that some judgement is not far,  
Wilt then to mournful deprecations rise;  
But being banished from thy restless eyes,  
And nine days past, thou hast recourse amain,  
With dogs and swine, unto thy filth again.  
But if thou wilt redeem thy soul from hell,  
Weep for thy sins, and mourn whilst thou art well:  
When Death hath stung, there is no time to pray,  
But line in Death, or die in Life for ay.   

Thou that surmounts in pompous dignity,  
In Pleasure, Beauty, Wealth, and Bravery;  
In Luxury thy precious Time dost spend;  
Remember, that these Shadows must have end.  
And that, from whence thou reapedst chief delight,  
With loathsomeness shall work thee worst despite.  
Like to Tarpeia's bracelets bright of gold,  
For whom, with Guile the romans castle sold  
Unto the Sabines, won by treacherous Fate:  
But yet these bracelets brought her general hate,  
Wherewith at last herself was priest to death,  
And quite bereft of vital sense and breath.  
So Pleasures press thee down to galling Grief,  
Or glance away, and leave thee sans relief;  
Like ranging Hawks that soar in lofty sky,  
With swift-winged flight from Lure of Falconers high.   

Demosthenes that famous Grecian,  
Favouring fair Lais, Corinth's Courtesan;  
Most vehemently desired (by Fanciefed)  
To have access unto her brothel bed:  
Whom she desired three hundred crowns to send,  
If lustful Will, her wish would apprehend:  
High heavens forbid (quoth he) that hot Desire,  
Should heap such flames to Pryaps burning fire:  
Though Lust allures, yet doth true Virtue hate,  
To buy Repentance at so dear a rate.  
This heathen Mole, had Reasons eyes to see,  
That Pain attends on Pleasure's surquedry.   

The buzzing be that sings in autumns field,  
Doth from her labour, wax and honey yield,  
Which to man's senses, many comforts bring;  
Yet in her tail there lutkes an angry sting.  
So Pleasure hath her honey of Desire,  
Inflaming wax dissolved in Folly's fire:  
But yet behind a dreadful sting remains,  
Which wounds the heart, enwrapped with Fancies pains:  
Her meager joints are tentred on deep Cares,  
Her vigour racked on imbecile Despairs:  
Times revolution frets her pleasing pranks,  
As waters wash and wear away their banks.  
And as the dew from heaven to earth assigned,  
By heat exhaled, or scattered with the wind:  
Or crystal bubbles which on rivers play,  
With agitation vanish quite away:  
Or Characters deciphered forth on sand,  
Which by Elwion perisheth out of hand;  
So Earth's masked joys but for a moment last,  
And soon extinct by Times oft-changing blast.   

Peruse the Songs of sweet-tounged Solomon,  
Israel's great King, fair Iuda's Paragon,  
Zion's Melodes, the source of Sapience,  
Bedewed with drops of sacred influence;  
For whom the Sabian Queen did journey far,  
To view the splendour of so bright a Star:  
When he had heaped millions up of gold,  
Erected buildings glorious to behold;  
And planted trees, fed with sweet fluent Springs,  
And treasures won by captivated Kings;  
And singers with harmonious melody,  
Concording in Amphion's symphony;  
And all delights which Reason could devise,  
Were set as Objects to his restless eyes:  
O vain (quoth he) is all the Earth's delight,  
But pictured Glosses, and disturb the Spirit:  
I now discern by Faith's celestial eye,  
Pleasure's but vain, most vain, and Vanity:  
For with Times-turne their semblant beauty's gone,  
Whirled round with Change, as Sisyphus rolling stone.  
Thus man's Delights, and earth's Felicities,  
Are but even pleasant-seeming Vanities.   

In Turn of Time all Creatures shall decay,  
(For Time itself in time must pass away)  
The winged-people of the various Sky,  
The scaly Troop which in the Surges lie;  
The heavens, the earth, and seas shall burn to nought:  
(Not to that Chaos, whence they first were brought)  
The World's great Synod formally combined,  
With pure celestial Fire must be refined.   

Don Phoebus' Steeds their glistering coach must stay,  
The burnished Gates include heavens Bright from Day,  
The Stars, and Phoebe's fever-shaking Light,  
Shall mask their Beauties from the dismal Night:  
The Comets, Meteors, with each Hemi-sphaeare,  
To work strange Operations shall forbear.  
Old white-haired 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with strict compassed pace,  
Must cease to coarse his artificial Race:  
The Sea, the Flood, the Spring, and watery Lake,  
Must by Times turn their liquid Caves forsake,  
Which from the Cisterns of the Centre deep,  
Through Earth's wide Nerves in kerbed manner creep.  
The flourishing Ver, and fruitful autumns grace,  
The icy Vizard of breme Winter's face;  
The Year, the Month, the Hour, the Night, the Day,  
Shall subject stand to Heavens Catastrophé:  
Heavens wondrous Works, which thus in strictness turn,  
When Pan appears, in sulphured flames must burn.  
All Wights that wander through this Orb below,  
Must pay that sum which they to Nature owe:  
All must dissolve, even from the Cedar tall,  
Unto the Hyssop, springing on the wall,  
When heavens loud Trump shall sound Earth's summing note,  
And Time turns off his rainbow coloured cote.   

But Ate's brood, true Model of the Maker,  
That Angellike of joys are made partaker;  
Endued with Reason, Dangers to eschew,  
judicially Times Accidents to view:  
Casting an eye to things past and foregone,  
To supravise th'events ensuing on;  
By retrogredience to Time's height and fall,  
In their progredience can discern them all:  
These that in portraiture all Shapes excel,  
Must mount to heaven, or flutter down to hell.   

Therefore let Reason fervently apply  
His soul to live, as still prepared to die;  
In all essays his heart uprightly bend,  
As one that swiftly marcheth to his end:  
Though he on Earth all worldly Pleasures have,  
Yet let him deem one foot still in the grave.  
The valiantsouldier marching longest the plain,  
Courageously, to his immortal gain,  
Assaults his foes, and near to them doth come,  
Although most near ensues his baneful doom;  
Swifter he marcheth them with blows to spend,  
The swifter still approacheth to his end:  
Desire of Fame kindles an ardent rage,  
While lean-faced Death attends him as a Page;  
Yet armed in heart, of furniture well sped,  
Resolves to die in Honours valorous bed.   

This world's a warfare, thou a soldier,  
Wherein thou strivest to stand Death's conqueror,  
Contending with hell's Dragons damned host,  
From woes to joys, from joys to woes ytossed.  
Without, the World allures thee with Delight;  
Within, foul Sin thy intellectual spirit  
Suggests; and opposite to thy dark Eye,  
(T'entangle thee) sly Satan's engines lie:  
Behind, a strict-bound Conscience clogs thy heel;  
On thy right hand, mounts Fortune's lofty wheel;  
And on the left, Adversity doth wait,  
To feed thy Thoughts with Cares penurious bait:  
Under thy feet, the Grave doth gape each hour,  
With wide-stretched mouth to swallow and devour;  
And o'er thy head, heavens heavy ludgements lie,  
Prepared still to be poured forth on thee.  
Than not unaptly grave learned Writers call  
Thee, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Small world of thrall.   

Thy state of life may be compared thus;  
Unto the Mariner, in storms dangerous:  
(When blustering Aeolus opes his vented Caves,  
And Neptune's rorall beard's bedashed with waves:)  
He views the heavens ore-vailed with pitchy clouds,  
Huge tempests rise, each beast in shelter shrouds;  
And foaming billows beating 'gainst his Bark,  
Then waits each hour, to dive in Deluge dark.  
But when Dan Titan, with bright golden ray  
Doth guiled the pale-greene Palace of the sea,  
And with his purging Fire refines the sky,  
He skips with joy for his delivery.  
So in this Orb thou sailest through seas of Woes,  
Again, with pride scorns Fortune's overthrows:  
Oft Fortune storms, and her clear Sunshine fails,  
Then joy retires with wofull-battred sails.  
Thus art thou subject to Times turn, and Fate,  
To be transformed in Person, Life, or State:  
For Time can turn to set the World on float,  
And strait can urge him sing poor niob's note.   

If th' Embryo foreknew these woes, entombed  
Within the walls of his dear Mother's womb;  
If he could see, before he sees heavens Light,  
Earth's Languishments, as Objects to his sight;  
Would ne'er contend to open the Matrice wide,  
By Generation naturally to glide  
From tranquil Calm, to surging seas of Cares;  
From silent Mansion, to a mass of Snares:  
But rather wish in dark Oblivion cast  
Without a Being, then on Earth be placed,  
To gaze upon the Sun's bright Orient,  
His Beams, Meridian course, and Occident;  
The world's delights would hold in spiteful scorn,  
Entirely wishing he should ne'er be borne.   

This was observed by the Drausians,  
And as an Axiom high decretal stands:  
That when a Babe from fruitful womb did rise,  
Would mourn, weep and lament in wondrous wise:  
For that they knew, he was brought forth to stand  
In this frail Orb, as on the shivering sand;  
Ready to sink into the depth of Fears,  
Environed round with intricate Despairs.  
But when one died, then gladly they rejoice,  
With ravishing Musicks-simphonizing voice:  
In this respect, they held him then set free,  
From out the vale of cankered Misery.   

Thus Man by Nature is conceived in woe,  
From generative Seed continues so;  
Still turned about with Times soft motion,  
Disturbed-wise, as Sisyphus rolls his stone;  
Or boiling Eurypus, which hurls along  
With never-ceassing Agitation:  
Fast marching forward like a Soldier brave,  
Yet step by step descends fast to his grave,  
Till the last travel of his mother Earth,  
Shall purge him with regenerative Birth.  
But in earth's war, prepare heavens furniture,  
That in thy death, of life thou mayst be sure.   

As Navigators first forego the sight  
Of friends, and next, of cities fair and bright.  
And finally, launch out from bank and shore,  
With resolution ne'er to see them more.  
So Man's deprived first of Infancy,  
Next, of his Youth and strong Virility:  
In fine, outworn with his unwieldy Age,  
Loseth the sight of this Orbs spacious stage:  
When hoary Eld his stooping back doth bend,  
With concaved eyes views then his rest and end.  
Thus (pedetentim) Man exhales his breath,  
If not prevented by immediate Death:  
Even as the Dial's shade, deposed from Rest,  
In one days space doth course from East to West;  
By circumuersion slily passeth by  
Gradatim wise, yet not discerned with Eye.  
So Man crawls on twixt earth and heavens bright rays,  
Towards the west and welking of his days:  
Yet knows not when grim Death shall stop the race  
Of his life's hours, moving with gentle pace;  
As nothing is more sure than loss of Breath,  
So nought's unsurer then the kinds of Death.   

Aeterna Lex hath sacredly described,  
(From whence th'event of Life and Death's derived)  
A general uniformall path from Womb,  
But various by-ways to the grave and tomb.  
As divers ships launch from one port and deep,  
Yet sundry ways upon the Surges sweep.  
Some bound for East to frost-bit Scythia,  
Others for West to fair America,  
Some subject fail to Austers brief controls,  
Others range through breeme Boreas frozen poles:  
So all atchieuc one entrance from their birth,  
But various passage to their grandam Earth.   

How many plunge to tristall timeless fall,  
(As may appear by proofs Authentical)  
By Murder, Shipwreck, Beasts, Elwion,  
By Fire, by Sword, by Wars confusion:  
By Famine, Pestilence, (Earth's Misery)  
By wondrous Accidents thrown down from high;  
By Thundering, Lightning, Tempests that arise,  
By desperate Spirits and damned Fallacies;  
By joy, by Penury, by Wealth, by Woe,  
Some apprehend unnatural overthrow:  
By Nonnage, Youth, Old-age, some strangely high  
To the dark Mansion of Obscurity.   

Young Drusus Pompey, Claudius' lineal heir,  
Amidst his sport was choked with a Pear:  
Eurypides was torn with dogs alone,  
Anacreon stifled with a Raisins stone:  
And Catulus pursuing timeless death,  
With stinking smoke did suffocate his breath.  
When Marius soldiers swiftly did pursue,  
Embraced this death, a better to eschew.  
Valerius, Carus, Emperor's great through might,  
Perished by thunder and celestial Light:  
Pliny was burnt by wondrous fires, that blazed  
From mount Vesuvius, whereon still he gazed,  
To comprehend the nature of that light,  
Wherewith his days were consummated quite:  
And hundreds more, which might in tragic verse  
Be instanced, too tedious to rehearse.   

Thus various stands Times imminent turn of Men,  
They know to die, yet know not where, nor when.  
The heavens bright Eye knows when t'include his rays,  
But Man knows not the Vesper of his days:  
So whether thou incline to Good or Ill,  
Or frame thy heart to Nature's wilful Will;  
Or plant such trees, which bring forth bitter fruit  
In thy Souls soil, following with hot pursuit  
Earth's soure-sweet Pleasures, various in their tastes;  
Yet still thy Lamp combusts, thy life's Oil wastes:  
Wheeling about with blasts of whirlwind Time,  
To Death's dark den of dust and putrid slime.  
Admit, thou reap'st Youths flourishing verdant flowers,  
And overrun the glass of Nestor's hours:  
Yet at the last, Life's root will withered be,  
And stock traduced to gross Morosity:  
The Sap once dried, Life instantly is gone,  
Even as a Dream, or Apparition.  
And as green fruits by ripeness fall from tree,  
Or sparks, which of themselves extinguished be;  
So Nature must thy fruitless branches send  
To the succincting Period of their end.  
Then let this Dish be served last at thy Feast:  
Memento mori, VIR incertus est.   

He that his Soul to sinfulness doth bend,  
Let him recount the Sorrows of his End;  
When heavens shrill Trump shall rouse him from his sleep,  
And Goats sequestered from the harmless Sheep:  
Before the general judge shall he be brought.  
To plead Peccavi for each trivial Thought:  
Like as his life, shall be his Death and end,  
What Death abandons, judgements apprehend:  
What Life and Death in Good or Ill defrays,  
The judge in judgement to his Soul repays.  
heavens workmen then their wages shall be paid,  
When slothful slugs in Dungèon shall be laid;  
Where Fire shall burn, yet not consume them quite,  
Nor to their comfort yield them any Light,  
There shall they die in life, and live to die,  
Such Horrors waité on hell's Eternity.   

O London, meekly prostrate on thy knee,  
Fore heavens great King with pure Sincerity;  
Revolve his praise, (Creator of that Day,  
Wherein the Organs of thy Senses play)  
Who hath preserved thee from Sedition,  
From thirsty Sword, and starved Occision:  
Better it is a thousand times for Sin,  
To fall into the hands of God than men:  
For brunt of fiery Wars are merciless;  
But God in mercy will thy woes redress:  
This caused the princely Prophet wars refuse,  
By inspiration Pestilence did choose.   

Thou that art poisoned with this fierce disease,  
And fiery torments furiously increase;  
If all external Remedies were gone,  
Have thou recourse to heavens Physician:  
Perfume the inward rooms of thy Desites,  
With savours sweet, and holy-heated Fires:  
Moisten thy couch with rears for thy offence,  
To quench the flames of burning Pestilence:  
Sing sadly forth to Heaven this sacred Ditty,  
Thus stir jehova to soules-saving pity:  
If thou shouldst search the poisoned heart of man,  
If thou in ludgement shouldst his judgements scan:  
If thou shouldst view how vile his Nature is,  
If thou shouldst notice take what's done amiss:  
Then would his name be written in the air,  
Then would Oblivion wrap him in Despair;  
Then would he ne'er achieve Heavens crowning Fame,  
Then would in hell be charactered his shame.  
O mighty jove, omnipotent in Might,  
O, I Earths-worme crawl fore thy gracious sight:  
O God, o King of kings majestical;  
O who can stand, when thou commandest to fall.  
Thy Grace shines perfect indiniduall,  
Thy glorious Power extends itself to all:  
Thy Mercies pass the numbers of the sand,  
Thy Fountains flow, thy Welsprings never stand.  
Turn down thine Eye, behold my mournful grief,  
Turn these my crystal tears to Pearls of life:  
Turn back thy face from my corruptions,  
Turn these corrections to Instructions.  
My Soul surmounts Aurora's dew-moist Lark,  
My Sense is kindled with a sacred Spark,  
My Heart is rapt above the third Degree,  
My Spirit with lofty evolence flies to thee.  
Thou art that Balne, wherewith my soul is cured,  
Thou art that Law, whereto my heart's adjured,  
Thou art that Mount, whereon my spirit must rest,  
Thou art that House, wherein my Sense lines blest.  
Then will thy soul's Physician come to thee,  
Ministering Mercy to thy misery,  
And cheer thy Senses with supernal Food,  
Which shall redound to thy immortal good;  
Thy heart will then desire (amongst the blessed)  
To be dissolved, and to sleep in rest:  
And as the sun's most swift at his descending,  
So shalt thou be most blessed at thy ending.   

London, with tears thy grievous sins lament,  
Thy flintic heart with humbleness relent.  
With fastings, mournings, greet him by the way,  
Prevent his plagues with spacious Ninive;  
And purge the inward Man of foul Offence,  
That God may purge thee of this Pestilence:  
Embrace his Love as sweet Preservative,  
If in heavens Eden thou dost mean to thrive.   

Discute that damn'd-aspiring Enemy,  
That puft-sterne-dropsie-swelling surquedry  
Of Self-conceit, which suffocates thy Soul,  
And in thy Heart doth Purity control:  
Lest thy Selfe-ruine so be brought to pass,  
As to the Basilisk, which in a glass  
Beholds his beauty long, until at length  
He be deprived of his vital strength;  
And whiles the glass his beauty forth doth send,  
His own reflecting-poison works his end.  
Or lest thy Springs be turned to Gulfs of blood.  
And Beauty drowned in fair Narcissus' flood.  
To muse on Heaven thy Senses elevate,  
To walk upright, thy Spirit animate.   

Let not heavens Light obscure thy dazzled eye,  
And be the Deathsman to Virility;  
Let not th' embassage of the glorious Lord,  
And powerful Essence of his sacred Word,  
(Life's pure Elixir, Sunshine of thy Day,  
Which can with joy, Hearts corrosives allay)  
Harden thy heart, and eke thy soul compel,  
To tread the broad-beat-path that leads to hell:  
As scorching Titan with his ardent ray,  
Dissolves the wax, and obdurates the clay,  
So doth heavens voice the human heart relent,  
Or works it harder than the sparkling Flint.  
Approved by Pharaoh, who would never grant  
(His heart being closed in tombs of Adamant)  
A free dismisment to poor Israel,  
but did the Legate of heavens Lord dispel;  
And 'gainst his Prophet did perversely stand,  
Till jone sent forth strange plagues upon his land.  
So hath thy Toad-sweled proud rebellious heart,  
Increased the rigour of thy general smart;  
Which at thy gates hath forced Intrusion,  
To thy Conversion, or Confusion.   

Therefore in jove gush out pure streams of tears,  
Environ round thy heart with sacred Fears;  
And to renounce thy crimes with Zeal intend,  
Lest Heaven reserve thee to a fearful end.  
Shake hands with Sin, and bid him now, Farewell,  
Prepare thy Soul with Godliness to dwell;  
Redeem that Time which thou haft lewdly spent;  
In this Times-turne, with Faith be penitent:  
For Heaven hath sent thee to thy soul's desire,  
More blessings than earth's Nature could require;  
So many Graces to thy hearts Content,  
Which to the World doth argue wonderment.  
But sith from him thou turnedst back thy face,  
He turned these Mercies to thy deep disgrace;  
And tedious Taxes fastened on thy head,  
In that thy Pride was not abandoned:  
But still relapse from Grace, and fall from Truth;  
The Nerves of Age, the Compliments of Youth.   

You immane Atheists who in darkness dwell,  
To horrid Devils the damned Sentinel:  
Affording Nature that sole high renown,  
Which natures Author weareth as a crown:  
Old grandam Earth doth loath your noisome breath,  
That die in life, and live, to live in death:  
Th'insatiate Gulf prognosticates your merits,  
It grieves the Air to feed your vital spirits.  
Can new-born Sucklings frame their steps to go?  
Can Youth, grave Eld Experiences show?  
Can the Pupil, his learned Tutor teach?  
Can the damned Reprobate heavens Towers reach?  
Can the Palace direct the Framers hand,  
To build so firm, that it for ay might stand?  
Or can base Nature, cauterised with shame,  
Abstract one Iod from Ioues great glorious name?  
Can abject Dust (by heavens predestinate,  
Though collocated in Angelic state)  
Assume or derogate that Work divine,  
Which can to nought but filthiness incline?  
With terror muse, with trembling cogitate;  
To higher Thoughts your souls exasperate.   

Heaven is the justicer of Nature's heart,  
Nature's the workmanship of heavens great Art,  
Art is the root of human nature's Skill,  
Skill letteth lose the reins of Nature's Will,  
Will works th'Effects of Nature's own decay,  
Decay must Nature, God perfists for ay.  
How could her power confirm Time's Accident,  
Turning sad woes with joys circumferent?  
How could th'Effect without th'Efficient,  
Redound these glorious graces imminent,  
To Albion's comfort, by jehova wrought,  
When Hope lay frustrate of aspiring thought?  
Then, when the Zodiac of Earth's Sun was ended,  
And our Horizon on the Fates attended,  
Who robbed Apollo of that fairest Fair,  
Whose bright Meridian guilded Albion's Air:  
Yet of airs benefit itself deprived,  
From frozen Pole a brighter Sun revived;  
It led to th' Occident of fatal Rest,  
A clearer Orient started out from West.  
Again, to mix the poison of Annoy,  
With her delightsome cordials of joy;  
Amidst her cheerful wines to mingle in  
The bitter Potion of the dregs of Sin.   

Now search your hearts, in heart imagine now,  
Hell's deep damnation branded on your brow.  
O gaze to heaven, grovel not on the ground,  
Earth you corrupts, in Heaven all joys are found:  
Heaven is the haven of true perfect rest,  
Heaven is that place assigned to the blessed,  
Heaven tendereth all, that do heavens Truth aver,  
Heaven trophies yields to Nature's Conqueror.  
Therefore awake from th'Ecstasin of Shame,  
By earthly Conquest, purchase heavenly Fame:  
Out of your hearts Earth's drugs evacuate,  
To heavens great All, 
Qui Dro repugnant.  all praises arrogate:  
Accursed to Hell such as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
Do calcitrate against the gates of Heaven.   

Now sith, o Albion, jone hath full decreed,  
To send thee succour at thy extreme need,  
Shrouding thee under his Al-covering wing,  
And still protecting thee from sorrows sting;  
Be grateful therefore to his Sovereign Might,  
Who always held thee gracious in his sight.  
In thee no rumours run of civil wars,  
Nor of Sedition and tumultuous jars;  
But all with joint applause do sing of Peace,  
Of plenteous Autumns, and a sweet Increase:  
(O sacred Peace, by thee are only found  
Th'exceeding joys, that every where abound!  
Thanks, sacred jone, that hath sent us a King,  
Who turns our Winter, to a gladsome Spring.   

Now Mars may drag his Ensigns in the dust,  
His Adamantine coat may lie and rust:  
Brabbling Bellona now her broils may stay,  
And in her sacrificing Temple play,  
Turning shrill Cries, to tunes of Musics sound;  
Harsh Discord now, with Concord sweet is drowned.  
For Phoebus' Lute descants a newfound note,  
Whereat Time skips, and turns his Protean Coat.   

Rip up the womb now of the fertile field,  
And prune thy trees whose graffs abundance yield:  
Now may great Pan traverse the verdant woods,  
To view the springing plants and sprouting buds.  
Now may the shepherds when they chance to meet,  
Trip over Narcissus with their trampling feet:  
Now may they dance their rustic roundelays,  
Now philomele may warble on the sprays:  
Now sweld-cheekt Thrombus midst his vines may swim,  
And fill Castalian bowls up to the brim.  
Now may thy full-fraught ships for Merchants gain,  
Divide the furrows of the watery Plain;  
Neptune who knocks his curl'd-locks 'gainst the sky,  
Hath how resigned his full Supremacy.  
Now may earth's Load-starres (ore-vailed by Night)  
Without disturbance spread their sparkling Light:  
For Phoebus' Lute quavereth a heavenly note,  
To make Time dance in his Chameleon cote.   

Honour late closed in tombs of Infamy,  
Now burn pure lamps of Generosity:  
Truth once ore-caft with clouds of Errors strong,  
Shall now appear with grace in thickest throng.  
Virtue revive, thou Mirror of thy Race,  
Thrown by malignant Spirits to low Disgrace,  
And prostitute to Fates exorbitant,  
When Shrubs o'er Cedars grew predominant.  
Awake Renown, great heir of Chivalry,  
Spread out thy Name, though in earth's womb dost lie:  
Hence old Oblivion, clasp thy black-leaved Book,  
Virtue disdains in thee t'afford a look:  
'Gainst hell's despite, her beams on earth shall shine,  
Though registered amongst the Saints divine:  
While solid dromedary Spirits shall be  
Blind Homagers to base-bred Progeny;  
Who once seemed bright, stamped with honours mark,  
Like glittering Glow-worms glimpsing in the dark;  
Fretting their gangrened scars, shall lie halfe-drowned,  
With inundation of Disgraces found:  
For Phoebus' fingers strike a sacred note,  
Constraining Time to turn his sable cote.   

Thou worlds-Confusion, thou rust-fretting Spite,  
Deflowering Virtue and her Virgins-right,  
With stretched Stratagems, and Forgeries,  
As treacherous Sentinels raise false descries:  
To please thyself, Melpomens' music sings,  
By making Kings poor vassals, vassals kings.  
Time's past, thy crew and Machiavellian Race,  
Constrained the Horse, to serve the servile Ass;  
Superficial syllogisms propounding still,  
Wrested Truths key to open thy cankted Will.  
Thy quelling hand suppressed huge-growne Okes,  
T'abide the brunt of base-bred Peasants strokes,  
Poisoning the fluent streams of honours Spring,  
With thy infectious venimed aspish sting:  
(If Richard had not been by Envy led,  
Brave Bucchingham had never lost his head.)   

Thou pale-saced Fate, thou Minister of harms,  
Inveigling Diana with supposed Alarms:  
Then, when the wide-mouthed Beasts pursued in chase  
The lightfoot Roe, tripping with nimble pace,  
T'escape the chaps of those Hart-senting hounds,  
Stripped through the Plains of Diane's sporting grounds:  
But yet the yels of their foot-following cries,  
Incensed the Goddess with a deep surmise;  
That, through her Walks without respect he rones,  
Spoiling her silver Fountains, Shades and groves.  
Whereat she storming, snatched her stiffe-steeled bow,  
With quiver-bearing Might did wound this Roe:  
O Diana fair, yet foul disastrous Luck,  
To foil fairplay in foiling of this Buck!   

So soon as he received this lethal blow,  
Heart-trembling Fear, and Sense-appalling Woe,  
Rudely rushed through the Herd disturbed-wise,  
With ululations, shrieks, and Mandracke-cries:  
Thus woodly ranging, these exclaims forth powered:  
The Beauty of our beauteous Breeds deflowered!  
The Sylvans eyes distilled pure crystal Tears,  
And Diane's Nymphs rend their dissheauled hairs:  
The Cedar (malcontent) hung down his head,  
The dwarffie Shrub did quake astonished:  
Th'aspiring hills sad mournful murmurs 'scended,  
The dales cried (woes) before their woes were ended;  
Their daughter Echo with her tripled Tongue,  
Did Tel-tale-like reduplicate this wrong:  
Through rocks and groves this tattling news did sling,  
Which caused the concaved vasty anters' ring.   

Pan wakening with these universal cries,  
Began to start, presaging Tragedies;  
And gazing 'mongst his flocks on champion ground,  
Espied his Fair struck down with mortal wound.  
Then bloud-congealing Fear enwrapped his heart,  
Each actual Sense forgot to act his part;  
And Nature's functions slacked their usual charge,  
From whence lives Organs force free passage large.  
Thus over-quell'd with palsey-quinering Dread,  
Plucked up the sluice and flood-gates of his head,  
From whence gushed forth a Pleni-tide of tears,  
Which trickling down, hurled through his snow-white hairs.  
But vital Motions being reduced again,  
Enjoined Hearts-bloud to course through every vein;  
Then Sighs and Words (confused) did issue forth,  
Like blustering storms from cloud-dispelling North:  
Each word breathed sighs, each sigh braithed out a word,  
Even as the treasury of his Thoughts was stored:  
While blasting Fear, his branching Nerves did kill,  
Quavered this Threnos on his rustic lil.   

Thus he began: What Death-presaging Star?  
What monstrous Meteor, or spherical jar?  
What black disastrous Planet blasts from sky  
T'infect these woods? What envious Destiny  
Hath thus conspired my Paragon to slay,  
My flocks chief Guide, Conductor of their way?  
Light to mine eyes, Ease to my burdened heart,  
Sweet Delian Music to assuage my smart;  
Sap to the Plants, sweet lustre to each Flower,  
Fair Flora's joy seated in fragrant bower:  
Phoebe intrailed him with a lovesick grace,  
And with a smile Titan adorned his face.  
Ver's sweet Blossom, Daphne's fairest Fair,  
Queen Clores Pride, and Nature's best-framed Heir;  
Nay, Nature's self, herself hath foiled to frame him:  
But Sighs have drowned my Tongue, it cannot name him:  
Silence sears up my lips they must not open,  
While raging Thoughts perforce my brains have broken  
But oh, what foaming floods beat 'gainst my breast?  
How are the waters of deep woes increased:  
Now, now, per violence their streams burst out,  
Though with a thousand flood-gates hemmed about.  
I must speak I, though with Pythagoras Ring  
My mouth were sealed: Necessity rules a King.   

Misled Diana, misinformed Queen,  
What furious Nymph did animate thy teen?  
What overruling Fate, overruled thy hand,  
To strike the fairest that tripped on scorching sand:  
Ore-ruled Goddess, yet ore-ruling All,  
Overruled, t'approve this overruling Thrall.  
O would thy sinews had beneloosened so,  
As thy stiff arms could not have bend thy bow;  
O that thine eyes had slacked their instant sight,  
That to thy shaft gave iust-directed Flight.  
Accursed that Bird, who forth her plumes did fling  
Next to that Shaft, whose root of whisking wing,  
Sits quaffing juice, till joy with Sorrow singeth;  
Eke rules the Earth, and earth's Confusion bringeth;  
Raising up one, basely detecting other,  
And sowing Variance twixt Man and his brother:  
I say accursed, who beats her flaggering wing,  
To make it sing and weep, to weep and sing.  
O that thy nimble fingers wide had slipped,  
Till he might through some uncouth paths have skipped  
From dint of Dart, remote a distant space  
From plotting Fox, Wolf, and abjected Ass.  
Wishes are wind: ay me, that Darling's slain,  
Whose crimson blood thy crystal brooks doth stain.  
His waxen Shape so true proportioned.  
lives now to jove, to rural Syluanes dead;  
Who once was deemed (before this tragic part)  
The pure subsisting Essence of thy heart.  
The satires left their Cells t'afford him duty,  
The Faunies leapt, as ravished with his beauty,  
The forest gods rude rustic Carols chanted,  
The jetting Birds on sprays and branches vaunted:  
Warbling his praise, this sweet-stretcht strain did sing:  
This is the king of Herds, the herds great King.   

Once thou didst grant him licence free to rove,  
Through every valley, mountain, shade and grove;  
As rapt in spirit to view so fair a Creature,  
Of Lineaments divine and famous Feature:  
To Heaven adjured, in Earth admired of all,  
Adorned with virtues Metaphysical:  
Until the Wolf, sly Fox, and Ass with charms,  
Rung in thine ears Envies extent alarms.   

Oft have I seen the Wolf of lambs make prey,  
The clamorous Hound hold the swift Hart at obey,  
And piercing-sighted Eagle soar above,  
To fix his talons on the mournful Dove:  
(Though these be Accidents assidual,  
Yet in their kind th'appeare tyrannical:)  
But never saw two Gemels wound each other,  
Or symbolizing shapes devour their brother:  
Yet (Diana) thou hast spoiled thyself in spilling  
This guiltless blood, and killed thyself in killing:  
For Nature in this moral Axiom shows,  
Precedent Wrongs, hast on pursuing Woes.   

Thou mightst have aimed thy deep Heart-wounding shaft  
Just at the Wolf and Fox, who slunk with craft  
Through every Plain, to spoil the harmless flocks,  
Tearing their lambs, who skipped on craggy rocks:  
This done, came crooching with a courtly grace,  
As masked Homagers with janus face:  
Fierce Leopards in works, yet Lambs in words,  
Their Enterprises, enter-piercing swords;  
vultures in thought, yet Doves in semblant graces,  
Monsters within, without faire-painted Faces,  
Honying their Tongues with Angels protestations,  
Poisoned their Hearts with devils dissimulations;  
Nay Sphinx nor Proteus (turned to colours strange,)  
Could change in time, as they with Time would change.   

Thou mightst have roused the burden-bearing Ass,  
Who strived t'immure himself midst fattening grass,  
Until with years the Lion's overworn,  
Then calcitrates him with insulting scorn:  
Who neighed to move a Smile, laden with pride,  
Though loathed of all thy virgin-Nymphs beside.  
He seeking shelter in minerva's Tower,  
From distillation of each silver shower;  
Lay listening Echoes, that done, 'gins to snort,  
Carrying their tattlings to Diana's Court:  
This seruile-solide-Lumpe plods back again,  
To blab what News with Diana did remain.  
This fawning Drudge in ponderous gold did swim,  
Like Marius' mules, who toiled, yet slick and trim;  
Supporting ay light Courtiers onerous jests,  
As Nature's bondslaves, borne to bear like Beasts.  
For Pallas spurning him from out her Hall,  
Cried: Get thee hence, I know thee not, nor shall:  
And Mars did scorn, that such a dul-paced jade,  
Should be officious to his warlike Trade:  
Yet thou didst grant him an admitment free,  
To be the Pander to false Forgery.   

These bloud-sworne Beasts unto their Dens scarce trudged;  
But still with Envy this Heart's swiftness grudged:  
(Consulting with grim 
* Midnight.  Mesonyxion)  
Observed his footings, and ranged tracks each one:  
And then pursued with eager hunting close;  
Yet smoothed it up, not deemed to be of those  
Who steeled their fierce fangs, and took their Stand,  
With his hearts-bloud t'imbrue the forests sand:  
But highly honoured him fore Diane's face,  
Yet in his absence dragged him to Disgrace.  
Faire-seeming Pictures dazzling thus her Eye,  
Foule seemed Fair, Truth seemed Treachery:  
Thus Diana decked with monstrous Semblancie,  
Herself seemed not herself, she was not she.   

But the sole solace of my soul, is this,  
Betwixt their Kind's t'oppose Antithesis:  
Albeit, this Fair by Destinies was chased,  
And in bright Splendour by foul Beasts disgraced:  
Yet in his Occident, (with Light replete)  
Great jove reserves him for a dainty meat:  
Whiles they in death shall as vile Carrion lie,  
Of Heaven abjected, loathed of earthly Eye.  
A second Fair shall spring from out his blood,  
Whose branching horns shall beautify the wood;  
Whom i'll range in from Wolves and Tigers jaws,  
Each Nymph and Satire lend him their applause:  
Whiles their Offspring slink slily to their Den,  
Aghast, to look on satires, Nymphs, or men.   

Thus Pan o'erwearied with this tasking style,  
With whispering Silence breathes himself awhile,  
And bids the Nymphs from neighbor-caves arise,  
To solemnize the Heards-kings Exequys.  
Then that performed, runs swiftly through the plain,  
To fetch his flocks up to their folds again.   

But soft, swift Muse, too fast thou postest on,  
Time bids, Range in this stern Idilion:  
Conclude with Time, when Time cócludes with thee,  
For Times and Motions must concluded be:  
Music with Time affords sweet harmony,  
And as united native Twins agree:  
But this was envies harsh-discordant Song,  
To make Time wash his cheeks and creep along.   

Envy go hang, thy viperous word's no Law,  
Thy Toad-like-swelling looks not worth a straw.  
Thou canst not now Defame, Depose, Deprive;  
Truth scales thy walls, thy kingdom cannot thrive:  
She now dispels white vizards from thy face,  
And elevates her Throne by thy disgrace:  
For Phoebus' Lute descants a newfound note,  
Whereat Time skips, and turns his Protean cote.   

Now may the flocks securely range at large;  
For jove himself of them hath taken charge.  
Now tender Lambs may skip from out their pens,  
While Romish Tigers slink into their dens;  
Like wandering Spirits midst the dreary Night,  
Whose Apparitions do abhor the light;  
Charming poor Fosters with their Magic Spells,  
Till the great- Hunt shall rouse them from their Cells:  
For now Apollo takes his Lute in hand,  
Time leapeth on with joy, and scorns to stand.   

As Foxes now in anters they remain,  
Scraping each dusty concave of their brain,  
For putrid Arguments, to hold dispute  
'Gainst Heaven itself, yet still themselves confute.  
As slippery Eels with sound of dreadful thunder,  
Scud from their chinks, and separate asunder:  
So of they creep from out their slimy caves,  
Plunged in the mud of deepe-despairing waves;  
Fluttring like Screech-owls on the craggy rocks,  
Yell forth Effatas to their senseless Blocks.  
They lash forth loathsome libels of Confess,  
With soules-seducing trivial Treatises;  
So far unfit to save a Christian,  
As is the Turkish truthless Alcoran.  
The march as Maskers in disguised shapes,  
Tossing their Beads with tricks, like mimic Apes:  
Or Cornish chaughs, that in their nests do chatter,  
Neither to Reason, Sense, or any matter:  
To Seigneur Crux such hote-breathed sighs they send,  
As make him frown, and vow to be their end:  
An Altar apt for such a Sacrifice,  
For what they crave, his Worship ne'er denies:  
The place is Shame, through Malefaction,  
And there with Shame they share Devotion.   

Now hath th' Italian Serpent cast her sting,  
And wounded lies by JAMES, fair Albion's King;  
Whom, Heavens protect from fawning Gnato's crew,  
That turn (with monstrous Time) to Protean hue;  
Or as bright Comets, whose blaze lasteth pure  
No longer, than their exhaled Fires endure:  
Or Hectic fits, now hot, now cold within,  
Now burns the heart, now frigerates the skin.   

Extirpate Traitors, o heavens expel  
The crafty Counsels of Achitophel,  
The soothing Humour of each Midius brain,  
That by blandiloquence seeks his state to stain:  
The damned stratagems of Romish Favourites,  
And all Spanized bloud-sworne Jesuits;  
Who long expected that a day would come,  
Wherein with blood they might work Albion's doom:  
Covering their face with veils of Loyalty,  
Their poisoned hearts consort with Villainy,  
To trucidate and murder Prince and Peer,  
Whose blood, both God and man esteem most dear.  
These are Illusions sprung from Popery,  
These are the fruits of false Imagery.  
In Nomine jesu, yet their facts must rise,  
O sleight Preludium to their Tragedies:  
Their actions are exhausted from Purity,  
Yet practise nought but devilish Treachery.  
Are these Devotions? nay, Delusions,  
Detractions, and their own Destructions.  
Let no man dread Rome's Hydra bearing sway,  
For Albion's Hercul's crops his heads away:  
One Head entire doth on his shoulders stand,  
Which will be broke by james own royal hand.  
For Phoebus hath devised an heavenly note,  
To make Time laugh, and turn his Sphinx-like cote.   

But hark, Muse, hark, me thinks some voice divine,  
Echoes the mountains of the Muses nine:  
Stay, genius Muse, thy over-tired team,  
Cease to discuss upon so deep a Theme:  
Now take repose in Aganyppe's vale,  
And mark the tenor of this sequel Tale.    

A panegyrical Idilion pronounced to the City of London before the entrance of her long-expected Comfort.  

NOw London rise from dreadful Dungeon,  
Of dark disastrous deep Destruction;  
Wherein thou didst embrace foul hoodwinked Night,  
Prodigious horror, indigence of light,  
And Sense-appalling Fear, with short-drawn breath,  
Fast gripped betwixt the chaps of ravenous Death:  
'Gainst whom, Heaù'ns wódrous works opposed were,  
Each Planet, and incomprehended Sphere,  
The restless Poles, and high-remoted Stars,  
Against thy Pride conspired direful wars:  
Apollo masked his face with beams of blood,  
While trembling Phoeb ' exanimated stood:  
With jointagree thus adunited all,  
To captivate thee with perfidious thrall.  
Erect thy bruised stormie-battred head,  
Basely dejected like the high-sprung Reed,  
Or grassy plains, where Ver bids flowers abound,  
Whose stems are urged to kiss the foul-faced ground:  
When as the furious Fire with discontents,  
(Included close midst liquid Elements,)  
Alongst the sphaery Frame doth range about,  
With burning ire to find some passage out;  
At last breaks through with roar violent,  
Like to a Lion in some dungeon penned;  
And then dissolves that grosse-congealed matter,  
To fierce tempestuous hail and floods of water.  
Then Aeolus opes his vented anters deep,  
That curl'd-haired Boreas through the world may sweep  
Whose steele-strong breath doth penetrate the rocks,  
Disturbs Damaetas and confounds his flocks:  
Affrighting Nature with celestial Thunder,  
And stoutly strikes the Cedars tops asunder.  
Whereat huge Aetna quakes, proud billows rise,  
And Amphytrite's Towers confront the skies:  
The sinewy Oak with fear falls flat to ground,  
Earth's Centre trembleth at this terrible sound.  
But when Latona's Heir transcends his Light,  
From queen Aurora's crystal Palace bright,  
Gazing about the World with cheerful Eye,  
Entrails the Earth with robes of Majesty;  
Entreats the upright-towring Lark to sing,  
The low-laid grass to rise, and plants to spring:  
Instructing Man by course from East to West,  
To rise with Labour, and lie down with Rest:  
Then boasts queen Flora in her fragrant bed,  
Who erst did droop with tempests ruined.   

So thou, sith Heaven respects thy mournful moan,  
From the high Solium of Ioues sacred Throne;  
Spreading his glorious beams of quickening Grace,  
Upon thy woeful storm-beat withered face:  
Suck vigour from his nourishing fervent rays,  
He yields thee life, yield him immortal praise.  
Sin as the Loadstone, drew this Plague upon thee,  
And sins expulsion, must expel it from thee;  
Sin grounds the Cause, & judgement frames th'Effect,  
T'assuage th'Efficient, Sin thou must reject:  
Hadst thou not sinned, Heaven had not cried, Repent;  
Where reigns no sin, there needs no punishment.   

Rig up thy Bark split through with storms of woes,  
Sail to the port where Pactolus o'erflows;  
condensed from Tmolus mount in Lydia land,  
Where golden gravel guilds the silver sand:  
Flourish in spite of interdicting Fate,  
Reduce thine Honour to his ancient state.  
Lachesis now (who erst so swiftly spun)  
May sit and rest, her tedious task is done:  
For mighty jove (th' Olympian king) foreshows  
The calculation of thy bypassed woes,  
To lie inundate midst pure founts of Love,  
Distilling from th' Ambrosian Springs above.  
As flame-haired Phoebus melteth by degrees,  
Drop after drop the weeping Ysicles,  
And so traduced to Dissolution,  
Are by the thirsty Earth absorbed each one:  
So, as he managed judgement with Increase,  
Doth mitigate it with a sweet Surcease.   

Now bath amidst Macenas' silver streams,  
To Europe's eyes extend thy golden beams.  
And as the satires skipping through each street  
Of ancient Rome, with Orpheus' music sweet,  
Sounding Amphyons quickening symphony,  
Threatened the death of Marcus Antony:  
So let 
* The Geddesse of Mirth.  Euterpe on the adverse part,  
Pluck up her spirit, and ever-chearefull heart,  
T'infuse thy streets with heavenly jocund mirth,  
And sacred solace for thy prosperous Birth.  
Thy Ephori put on their scarlet Die,  
To entertain his royal Majesty;  
Who longed to view thy face, (from him exiled)  
Even as a father doth his long-lost child.  
Produce thine Ornaments and ensigns fair,  
Let shril-tounged Trumpets penetrate the air;  
Let bells concord in Musics symphony,  
Let Anes dim the Meteors of the sky:  
jovissance divine reeccho in each place,  
Each creature cry: God save king JAMES his grace:  
Echo, the tattling Daughter of the hill,  
Shall iterate that Speech thrice-doubled still;  
For Phoebus tunes a sweet celestial note,  
Whereat Time skips with joy, in golden cote.   

When worthy Pompey, Lord of Africa,  
Was chosen Chief to scour the surging sea  
Of Pirates, braving with ore-swaying might;  
So high his Fame soared in the romans sight,  
That all applauded him with shouts and cries;  
So pierced the thin vast air beneath the skies,  
That certain fowls amazed fell flat to ground,  
Hearing such clamorous noise, and thundering sound.  
So let the Steel of pure Affection,  
Strike fire of Zeal and true Subjection  
Upon thy Vulgars' hearts, inflamed with love  
Of due Alleigiance, sparkling from above:  
That so they may conform their Loyalty,  
Consonant to Caesar's Solidurij;  
Who (when they were enrolled in martial pay,  
If chanced by brunt of fight to lose the day)  
For grief would kill themselves with their own hands,  
So near succincted with Affections bands:  
Then shall thy walls enclose him plausibly,  
As to his Throne he entered peaceably.   

Thy Muses flow with Archimedes Skill,  
That they thy streets with Rarities may fill.  
For when young Cato that brave Roman Peer,  
With his wel-manned ships approached near  
The Syracusan walls strong fortified;  
By Archimedes caution were descried:  
They full resolved to raze them flat to ground,  
By him such warlike Engines rare were found,  
(Which from the Tower thereof his Art down sent)  
Who turned their strong-built Barks circumferent  
With bottoms upward, drawn from out the fount,  
And cast upon the high confronting mount:  
He framed a Dove of wood by Art so rate,  
That for some space prepended midst the air  
Seeming alive, and counterpoised so right,  
Was thought to fly, most strange to human sight.  
So shall thy Muses from sweet Sapience,  
Infuse their Thoughts with powerful Influence:  
The learned Thalia that doth on Pernasse dwell,  
Shall Nectar quaff from Aganyppe's well,  
That they with deep Designs may move delight,  
Beyond the motions of sharp Reason's sight:  
From midst their Rarities shall Calliope sing:  
Great King of kings, protect king JAMES our King.   

Now genius Muse, drink of Castalian Springs,  
Then soar aloft with swift Pegasian wings,  
And mounting Euolence to th'ingenious brain;  
There bid thy turret-climing spirit remain:  
survive thy Thoughts, ere all the music's done,  
With Pallas dance in this Idilion:  
Let Phoebus ravishing Lute thy Music be,  
Salute great Pan with this Panygerie.   

Divine Apollo, Harbinger to jove,  
To Earth descend from moving spheres above,  
With thy bright Chariot, by proud Eôus led,  
Where heavenly Queens are high enthronized;  
That they as Guards may wait with rare delight,  
On Albion's Caesars royalised spirit.   

Let fair 
* Wisdom.  Sophia seat the chiefest part,  
In the Bedchamber of his peerless heart;  
That by converse she may pure Motions lend,  
From whence all Motions draw successful end.  
Let lovely 
* Prudence.  Phronesis with clear Diamonds dight,  
Be ever resident fore his Princely sight;  
Feeding with her bright Shine his piercing Eye,  
To search the drifts of wresting Sophistry:  
So sincere Truth shall chieve the upper hand,  
overtopping Vice, while she amazed doth stand.  
Let 
* Concord.  Melôs tune her silver-sounding Song,  
Within the groves of his minds Motion;  
That Heavens Astraea, sacred queen of Grace,  
Just measures there may tread with lofty trace.  

* justice.  Soter, unsheath thy never-danted sword,  
Strike downright Blows, as full-eyes can afford,  
With strict attendance on his right side stand,  
Mercy on left, t'assuage thy rigorous hand,  
And counterpoise thy scales with Parity,  
Rejecting squinteyed Partiality:  
Then shall thy Deity be adored of all,  
Congratulated both of great and small.   

As bright-eyed 
* Daystar.  Eôus Don Phoebus' Page,  
Attends his masters sweeting Pilgrimage,  
Sliding upright with burning flames accrude,  
To his Meridian climbing altitude;  
And then descends till his hot task be done,  
Towards the west's extracted Horizon.  
So let these glorious Empresses attend  
Upon his Acts, from Alpha to the end;  
That by their Conduct he may view the way,  
To dignify his Throne, and Sceptre sway:  
Pursuing still his princely Thoughts with speed,  
That their rich fruits th'event may always feed.  
As ' Numa was supposed to spend each day  
In deep conversing with Egeria;  
By whose advice he constituted Laws,  
Consorting to the Vulgar sorts applause:  
So by sweet Conference with all of these,  
Shall he prescribe his Laws, Acts, and Decrees;  
Which in their good Success shall stand upright,  
Fore mighty jove, fore Heaven and human sight.  
Then Albion thou, abundantly increase  
In Wealth, tranquillity, and joy full Peace:  
For that's true Peace, which Ius to kingdoms brings,  
King's subject to their Laws, not Laws to Kings.   

Now Mercury, surnamed 
* Light-soot.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉,  
Plume thy light wings, make haste, no time delay;  
Be swifter than Palladius Persian,  
That through the Roman Confines quickly ran  
To Theodosius, where he did remain,  
Showing, The romans had the Persians slain:  
Desist not then (if thou wilt purchase name)  
To thrust this Motto in the chaps of Fame:  
All-seeing jove fair Albion's isle hath blest,  
With a renowned King, and tranguile Rest.  
Whose Virtue glistering from his stately Throne,  
Gives sight unto his Substitutes each one:  
Even as the Sun with his transcendent Light,  
Tiends all the twinkling Candles of the Night.   

Fair Phoebe dance on Ganges argent streams;  
Dan Titan laugh with bright-reflecting Beams;  
Protract thy course from burning Ida's hill,  
Command thy burnished coach to wander still  
Under the starry Round, and third Degree,  
Till Earth be crowned with Angel's dignity.  
Great Court of Heaven thy Synod counite.  
T'adorn his heart with crowns of true Delight,  
That neighbour-kings admiring at his state,  
His Princely steps may strive to imitate;  
And that by Sovereign bliss his Reign may be  
A rare Memorial to Eternity.   

O blissful Concord bred in Heavens pure breast,  
For Albion's sacred and assured Rest,  
By jove, who rules the restless ranging sky:  
By thy Decree, that glorious power doth lie,  
With sweet Accord to keep the pugnant stars,  
And each foul Planet from disastrous wars.  
Celestial Ens, that Earth's Ens framed of nought,  
And by Creation, Light from Darkness brought:  
Thou that refined those vital Elements,  
From the confused Chaos quintessence:  
By whom we live, respire, move, stand, and be;  
Compounded of indifferent Quality.  
Thou that commandest Heavens axle-tree to move  
Upon the distant Poles, the Spheres above  
To turn with measured Course, and never stay  
From Agitation neither Night nor Day:  
Yet in the midst, Earth hast thou framed so fast,  
That shall perdure, till heavens huge Frame doth waste.  
Thou art that First, and last things dost pretend;  
Yet sans Beginning, and without an End:  
Thy glorious Power doth comprehend each one,  
Yet comprehended canst thou be of none.  
Thou didst prepare the mountain Ararat,  
(When the wide World in blindfold Deluge sat)  
To entertain the wave-tost Ark with Rest,  
From whence each Kind abundantly increased.   

In thee, in thee such powerful glory bides;  
From thee such Lenity and Friendship slides,  
As may command this Universe to bend,  
As mortal Ens can never comprehend.  
By thy Decree the lusty Cedars spring,  
The bloomie Ver abundant fruits doth bring:  
Thou dost increase the growth of summers seed,  
For to supply the breeme-faced Winter's need:  
Thou dost inspire the hearts of peerless Peers,  
In ripening Youth to choose their flourishing Feeres:  
" And look how fast to Death Man pays his due,  
" So fast again dost thou his Stock renew.  
As by this Precedent Albion now may see,  
Who doth enjoy JAMES royal Majesty:   

To whom I wish long, long, and happy Reign,  
Wherein he may the Gospel pure maintain;  
Old Nestor's years (o Heavens) let him excel,  
And be a Father grave in Israel.  
Grant sacred jove his royal Stock to stand,  
His Branch to flourish in fair Albion's Land,  
So long as Titan treads heavens silver track,  
To analize Times complete Zodiac:  
Till Time himself leave turning of his cote,  
And Phoebus cease to strike Time ravishing note.  
Thus each true English heart sincerely pray:  
And he that seeks his Person to betray,  
Fierce Proserpina with her Daughters three,  
Shall drag his soul to coal-black Tartary;  
To fearful Hades, or the darkest Hell,  
Where nought but Devils and damned Spirits dwell:  
Mean time my genius Muse this Note shall sing:  
Heavens prosper JAMES, the Britons lawful King.   
CECINI.  

Nuncibo intereà, & Pernassi in rupibus altis,  
Donec Musa iterum in beat me exire, latebo.    

PASTORAL PANEGYRICS.  

jacobo Regiaeterna Gloria.  
In Winter's wrack the torrents rage and flow,  
And shepherds forced to leave their pleasant rocks;  
Cold-wrinkled furrows seated in his brow,  
Out bids them drive their weatherbeaten Flocks.  
But mighty Pan commannds a Cedar spring,  
Out of whose root faire-flourishing Branches grow;  
Rising in height, heavens Choir about him sing,  
Each lofty Oak doth pure Alleigeance show.  
Graze now ye tender Lambs, skip and repast  
In fruitful Groves, under this Cedar shroud,  
Esteem not of fierce AEolus blustering blast,  
Turn not from fields when mists bright Titan cloud.  
Eager 
* Roma  Phaea, the wild Cremonian Sow,  
Ravening abroad, and searching for her prey,  
Nought can obtain but dreadful overthrow;  
As Flocks survive, she surfeits in decay.  
Great Cedar spread, in lasting glory spring,  
Leaves, Viburnes, Flowers, All shall sing thy praise,  
Our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Astraea's King,  
Recrowned be thou with neverfading bay:  
In Albion's Grove, flourish thy royal Blood,  
As long as Rivers flow, and Cedars bud.  
Astra Deo nil maius habent, nil Caesare terra: Sic Caesar terras, ut Deus astra, regat.   

Anna valeat Regina.  
Astraea peeping from the sky,  
Nymphs and satires gazed to spy  
Nature work her own Despair,  
And foil herself to frame that Fair.  
Up Flocks and dance, pipe rustic Swains,  
All fragrant flowers adorn the plains:  
Lo, Astraea comes at hand,  
(Ever Lucina by her stand:)  
Astraea glideth from the air  
To gild the Groves; she fairest Fair  
Revives the Plants, recures the Sprays,  
Eternal be her Crown of Bayes.  
Gaze may the Sun with splendent Bright,  
In dark doth she surpass his Light:  
Now sweet Muses ye behold,  
Astraea trip on earthly Mould.  
Semper virescas.   

Henricus Princeps vivat.  
Ho, Syluanes, Nymphs, leap from your silver lake,  
Erect your viols filled with golden praise:  
Now satires sing, your Cynic Cells far sake:  
Rodanus, thy madide beard from Rivers raise:  
In sweet agree,  
Come sing with me,  
Unto that Star that deigns to glide these ways.  
Sweet Flora now embellish thy fair Bowers;  
Paris, thou shepherds joy, heavens music bring,  
Revolve thy Lils, tripping amongst these flowers,  
Infuse rare Tunes, and rural Paeans sing:  
Note his bright Face,  
Combined with Grace:  
Echo with Aves bid the mountains ring.  
Phoebus' intraile him with thy golden ray,  
So fragrant Clores, summers verdant Queen,  
Unto his Progress, thy vert shades display,  
Inuellop him around with Chaplets green.  
Unto this Shrine,  
All joys divine;  
To Heaven a Sun, to earth a Lodestar seen.  
Sempersplendescas.    

ἘΠΙΜΕΛΩΔΕΣ.  
Laeta sit ista Dies, totumque canenda per orbem,  
Qua Princeps nobis Rexque JACOBUS erit.  
Plebs pia cumque pia laetetur plebe Senatus:  
Redde Deo grates ANGLIA tota tuo.  
Attulit illa Dies fessis miserisque Levamen,  
Et Lumen caecis, attulitilla Dies.  
Tempora temporibus mutantur tristia laetis,  
Succedunt summis Gaudia summa Malis.  
FINIS.