THE Countryman's Complaint, AND Advice to the KING.  
WE only can admire those happy times  
Of Innocence, unskilled in Laws and Crimes;  
When Gods were known by Blessings, owned by Prayer,  
And 'twas no part of Worship for to swear:  
Clearer than Fountains, and more free than those,  
Impartial Truth they all to each disclose.  
To hear and to believe were strictly joined,  
And Speech thus answered what it first designed.  
But Oh unhappy state of Humane kind!  
Nought dreadful now our Awe, or Faith can bind.  
Vows and Religions are but bare pretence,  
Oaths are found out to shackle Innocence,  
And Laws must serve a perjured Impudence.  
Tumults address for Blood, Witness for Hire deceives,  
And Judge is forced to Sentence what he ne'er believes.  
All Truth and Justice, blushingly withdraw,  
Leaving us nothing but the Form of Law:  
Whereby Rogues profligate and hardened in their Vice  
Proscribe all Loyal men, as factions raise their price.  
Poor Land! whose Folly to swift Ruin tends,  
Despised by Foes, unaided by its Friends.  
In vain does Heaven her Fiery Comets light,  
We stifle th' Evidence, and still grope in night:  
Baffled by Fools, betrayed by perjured Knaves,  
Rather than Subjects, we'll be branded Slaves:  
And by a vain pursuit of airy Bliss,  
Forfeit substantial real Happiness;  
Change Monarchy (from all oppression free)  
Religion, and its Native Purity,  
True Freedom, without lawless Liberty:  
For thousand Masters, worst of Tyranny,  
For frantic Zeal, formal Hypocrisy,  
For Licence to rude rabble's, Hell and Slavery.  
And all this wrought by old known Cheats and Rooks,  
Gods! to be twice Cajoled by Cants and Looks!  
Sots, orse than Brutes, to run into that Net  
We see, and know for our destruction set!  

To the KING.  
ARise, O thou once Mighty Charles, arise,  
Dispel those mists that cloud thy piercing Eyes;  
Read o'er thy Martyred Father's Tragic Story,  
Learn by his Murder, different ways to glory.  
How fatal 'tis, by him is understood,  
To yield to Subjects, when they thirst for Blood,  
And cloak their black designs with Public Good.  
As thou art Godlike by thy Pity, show  
That thou art Godlike by the Justice too:  
Lest we should count thy greatest Virtue, Vice,  
And call thy Mercy, servile Cowardice.  
Of old, when daring Giants scaled the Sky,  
The King of Gods ne'er laid his Thunder by,  
To hear Addresses for their Property.  
But quelled His Rebels by a stroke Divine,  
And left example how to deal with Thine.    

Printed in the Year, 1681.