POEM, TO THE KING'S MOST Sacred Majesty.  
BY Sr WILLIAM D'AVENANT.  
LONDON, Printed for Henry Herringman, at the Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1663.   

POEM, TO THE KING'S Most Sacred Majesty.  
THough Poets (Mighty King) such Priests have been  
As figured Virtue and disfigured Sin;  
Did in so fair a shape Religion draw  
As might, like Beauty, both allure and awe:  
Did rigid Rules in cheerful Songs disperse;  
Whilst all were Lai'ty but who dealt in Verse:  
Yet now of Priesthood they retain no more  
Than frequent cause Compassion to implore:  
For if there any shadowed strokes appear,  
By which to Priests they can resemblance bear▪  
It only may be said that both agree  
In willing or unwilling Poverty.  
Though Poets with the Poor now reckoned are,  
(Whom all expose to God's peculiar care)  
Yet as the Poor by want great Gainers be,  
When Want leads them to God for Remedy;  
So Poets, when their Days are overcast,  
And from their Noon they to their Evening haste,  
When Age, which is their longest Winter, stays  
T' increase their shame by showing their decays;  
When that long Winter grows at last so keen  
That even their Bays cannot continue Green,  
Yet against Frosty Age they may be armed:  
Poets by double Influ'ence have been warmed,  
And therefore may expect a Second Spring:  
We had our Phoebus, and have now our King:  
Whose Palace to th' Afflicted is as free  
As Temples where they God's Domestics be.  
How happy is Affliction which may come  
Where God allows not Merit any room?  
King's fit their Gifts to those who them receive,  
And to Affliction so much favour give,  
As may not well to Merit be allowed,  
Lest those they would encourage should grow proud.  
Kings, wisely jealous, watch how Merit grows,  
That they may know it ere itself it knows.  
Auspicious Monarch! here I lose my way!  
Yet as those Seamen luckily did stray,  
Who with Columbus were by Tempests blown,  
Till they from wanderers were Discov'rers grown,  
And found rich Nature's last Reserve, a new  
Great World; so I by Storms am brought to you:  
By Storms of Grief, which in my barren Breast,  
Like Winds in Deserts, with themselves contest.  
Yet 'tis not abject Grief, such as does mourn  
For want of Wealth the Body to adorn;  
But rather Sorrow of a noble kind,  
Which does complain for maintenance of the Mind;  
For want of that dexterity of Thought,  
Which in a moment has to Fancy brought  
All scattered Forms collected till she spy  
A single Map of all Diversity;  
As at an instant to the rising Sun  
All Objects are comprised and made but one.  
That heat is spent which did maintain my Bays;  
Spent early in your Godlike Father's praise;  
Who left the world more than it ever knew  
Before so great and good, his Fame and You.  
By many Wonders you were hither brought;  
Which, strangely too, by their concurrence wrought  
Our whole Redemption in so short a space  
As did the sloth of human aids disgrace.  
Those who did hold Success the Cast of Chance,  
And Providence the Dream of Ignorance,  
Might in these Miracles Design discern,  
And from wild Fortune's looks Religion learn.  
Yet when we shall contemplate God, from whom  
Your Crown did through a Cloud of Terrors come:  
When all those cares to which it must submit,  
And ceremonious forms which wait on it  
Are fully summed (Cares which to Age belong,  
And forms which tire, with tedious length, the Young)  
Then, like the Law which Moses had from Heaven,  
It seems to be imposed as well as given.  
You now are destined to more watchful care  
Then Spies of Faction or the Scouts of War;  
To Care which higher and more swiftly flows  
Than that which from design of Conquest grows;  
Such as may seem to other Monarches new;  
Care to reform those whom you might subdue.  
Conquest of Realms compared to that of Minds,  
Shows but like mischief of outrageous Winds;  
Making no use of force but to deface,  
Or tear the rooted from their native place.  
Who by distress at last are valiant made,  
And take their turn Invaders to invade.  
From Woods they march victorious back again  
To Cities, the Wall'd-Parks of Hearded-men.  
Victors by conquering Realms are not secure;  
Nor seem of any thing, but hatred, sure.  
A King who conquers Minds does so improve  
The Conquered that they still the Victor love.  
How can You rest where Power is still alarmed:  
Each Crowd a Faction, and each Faction armed?  
Who fashions of Opinion love to change,  
And think their own the best for being strange.  
Their own if it were lasting they would hate;  
Yet call it Conscience when 'tis obstinate.  
When weary of a Sceptre here, they fly  
To seek new fashions of Authority  
In foreign States, then bring Rebellion home,  
And take just Punishment for Martyrdom.  
The Saints of old, not struggling for defence,  
Did satisfy themselves with innocence:  
In Death's stern Court did gracefully appear,  
And civil to their worst Tormentors were.  
But these so sullen are, as if they thought  
Saints could not Death defy unless they fought:  
As if their Church should spring not from the seed  
Of their own blood, but that which others bleed.  
Though Conscience is in others secret shame  
Of doing ill, yet they in public claim  
Not only freedom for the ills they do,  
But call for liberty to preach them too.  
They seek out God in cruel Camps, and boast  
They God have found, when they have Nature lost;  
Nature, the public Light which is held out  
To all dim Minds who do of Godhead doubt.  
She openly to all does Godhead show;  
Faith brings him, like a Secret, but to few.  
Sects, who would God by private Optics reach,  
Invent those Books by which themselves they teach;  
And whilst with Heaven they too familiar grow,  
They to the Gods on earth disdain to bow.  
You safe amongst these different Sects remain,  
Where all would rule, and each a while did reign:  
And, having reigned, are apt to reckon it  
Worse than Idolatry when they submit.  
And though these Sects in Doctrine different be,  
Yet in the uses of it they agree,  
Which first they for the novelty approve,  
And after for the gainful mischief love.  
What confidence but yours durst undertake  
To give them Laws who dare Religion make?  
Whose private Conscience checks the public Laws,  
Whilst many Modern Sects have one old Cause.  
That Fever, Zeal (the People's desperate fit)  
You cool, and, without bleeding, master it:  
Dissembled Zeal (Ambition's old disguise)  
The Vizard in which Fools outface the Wise.  
You keep with prudent arts of watchful care  
Divided Sects from a conjunctive War;  
And when unfriendly Zeal from Zeal dissents,  
Look on it like the War of Elements;  
And, Godlike, an harmonious World create  
Out of the various discords of your State.  
Kings safer are when Zealots furious grow  
Then when their malice will no passion show:  
For Thrones should ever fear to be surprised;  
Not dreading Arms displayed but Foes disguised:  
Sects, which through zealous brav'rie not submit,  
Deal plainly but when tame they sergeant.  
When swelling Subjects are victorious grown,  
They leave, like Nile, where it has overflown,  
Monsters from fatness of corruption sprung,  
Which as they grow up soon so last not long.  
A Monsters hasty birth makes that ill shape  
From which, as soon as seen, men strive to scape.  
With sudden strangeness it does Strangers fright;  
And they as quickly chase it from their sight.  
So Sects, with monstrous impudence, may scare  
A while those who their boldness soon outdare.  
These, when by Justice of the Laws subdued,  
Call their unwilling Sufferings Fortitude,  
Or Conscience, though they nothing use to bear  
But from the basest cause of Conscience, fear.  
Through hideous Monsters, by Religion bred,  
And by the choice of human slaughters fed,  
You move so boldly that they rather seem  
To strive to scape from You than You from them.  
The truth of Resurrection is by You  
Confirmed to all, and made apparent too;  
Apparent in the Church, the world's best part;  
For of the world's whole Body 'tis the Heart.  
The Church You have revived: for well we may  
Confess it more than rescued from decay,  
Since having lost, by Martyrdom, the Head,  
The Limbs had all the signs of being dead.  
But though, when it does flourish, Sects deride  
The Church's Ornaments as Papal pride;  
Yet why with Sects (whose Congregations are  
But Men well disciplined for civil War,  
Not meek Assemblies but a sullen Crowd,  
Who out of haughty pride disdain the Proud)  
Should Calvin's civil Sect be rudely bend,  
Like zealous Goths, against all Ornament?  
Why do they verbal Ornaments esteem  
In Pulpits where they garnish out their Theme;  
And are in doctrine to their spiritual Guests  
Long as in Graces which but cool their Feasts?  
With Flowers of empiric they entice the Ear,  
As if they and their Audience Poets were.  
If they in curious Tropes and Figures preach  
(Which were the Ethnic Ornaments of Speech)  
And to our Ears provocatives allow,  
Why should our Eyes th'allurements want of Show?  
All these You have forgiven; so much forgiven  
That such an Act ne'er passed unless in Heaven.  
Their crimes are so much banished from your Mind,  
As if You had forgot what Act You signed.  
Yet who dares say You not remember it?  
Since You as much of Courage, Faith, and Wit,  
Have shown in keeping still that Act in force,  
As when it first was signed You showed remorse.  
Thus thoroughly to pardon does comprise  
The utmost goodness that in Greatness lies.  
If we consider what in God does seem  
To be that goodness which we most esteem;  
And which should Temples fill with his applause;  
It is, that all his Messages and Laws  
And, of his Works, all that to us are known  
Are fashioned for our interest not his own.  
So, by example of his goodness, You  
An interest different from your own pursue.  
For such your mercy is that even your Foes  
Gain by their crimes what You by virtue lose.  
But though this does appear the utmost height  
That mercy e'er did reach at her first flight;  
Yet yours at last so high a pitch may fly  
That even the Tempter's of your constancy  
(Who did the force of human reason bring  
Against your heavenly strength of pardoning,  
And what was done did labour to undo)  
You, as your hardest task, will pardon too.  
To royal Faith (preserved inviolate  
By native honour, not design of State)  
Conspicuous blessings, as rewards, are due,  
Which we receive, and owe them all to You.  
For after Twenty years in rapines spent  
(Th' illegal Acts of Lawless Parliament)  
In Fields we Harvests find, in City's Wealth,  
And after War, the Sire of Sickness, Health.  
If Nations by the plenty they obtain,  
When youthful Monarches have begun their reign,  
May prophesy degrees of future Store,  
No Prince e'er brought so much, or promised more.  
To You, who still are easy of access,  
Suitors can need no Guide but their distress.  
And though Distress long in complaint appears,  
That length no measure with your patience bears.  
You can endure a tedious narrative,  
And suffer the Afflicted to believe  
His Case is not as others cases are,  
But intricate, and very Singular;  
And that it never yet at best appeared  
Because he never has been fully heard;  
And it would find redress could it be known  
To any comprehension but his own.  
Some Princes, that they may the rumour gain  
Of minding business, mighty business feign;  
And are locked up, to have it then supposed  
They are more thoughtful when they are enclosed;  
But they from Concourse privately remove  
Only to shun what they pretend to love.  
Power which itself does so reserv'dly keep,  
As if the being seen would make it cheap,  
Should use the proper Seasons for retreat:  
For though decrepit Age may think it meet  
To hide stale Objects from the People's sight;  
Yet in a Thrones new glory all delight:  
All love young Princes in their flourishing,  
As all, with joy, walk out to see the Spring.  
Your Country's Genius and your own agree  
To make you rule as Sov'raign of the Sea.  
Nature has nothing made more unconfined  
Than your great Island and your greater Mind.  
You love the Sea, which the unpractised fear;  
'Tis your own Element and proper Sphere.  
Their fear does from their thoughtless ignorance grow,  
Your love does from your Studied knowledge flow.  
So knowing Minds to God affection bear,  
Whom th' Ignorant are only apt to fear▪  
Since You are prone by Nature to discern  
All that by Naval Art men strive to learn,  
You, with peculiar Glory, will obtain  
That Neptune's power which Poets did but feign.  
The Neighbouring Monarch (wealthy and at ease)  
Will build a City all of Palaces:  
A work which does the Founder's wealth express,  
And that he weary is of that excess:  
Why should he else his solid Treasure waste  
To make the shadow of his Memory last?  
Since by that strength which he from Quarries brings,  
To make his Name out-wear all other things,  
He but provides his purpose to prevent;  
His name may perish e'er the Monument  
For many a City built for future fame  
Has long outlived the vanished Founders name.  
By that tall Pyramid (which does appear  
The strongest Pile that Art did ever rear)  
Egyptians now themselves like strangers pass,  
And, but in vain, ask who the Artist was?  
Even of the Learned but few so curious seem  
As to desire to know the name of him  
For whom 'twas built: and both their aims have lost,  
One in his Art, the other in his Cost.  
Great Monsters, Cities, overgrown with Power,  
Do Neighbouring Towns by hungry Trade devour.  
You Cities build which not destructive be;  
Ships grown to Fleets are Cities of the Sea.  
And Ships by trade each other still improve  
More fruitfully than Sexes do by Love.  
Ships, which to farthest distances are sent,  
Are so concerned their number to augment,  
That they by nought but Number can dispense  
The vital heat of Trade, Intelligence.  
By power of Number they themselves disperse  
For a Collection, through the Universe,  
Of all the Freights which every Country yields  
From work of Cities or from growth of Fields.  
They grow to be a Squadron, than they meet  
In a free Road, and make a friendly Fleet;  
Where Patience, as her hardest trial, finds  
How much they can endure who wait on Winds.  
From thence (supplied at length with several Gales)  
Each to her proper Course does spread her Sails.  
Seamen, in loudest Storms, are not dismayed  
When they are even obliged to be afraid:  
For of what use can high confusion seem  
(When Winds and Waves strive which shall be supreme,  
And Nature does a frightful Vizard wear)  
Unless it be, to teach the World to fear?  
Bold Pirates, with a Frantic courage, dare  
Maintain against the World continual War;  
No Traveller is from those Robbers free  
On Nature's own Highway, the common Sea:  
But though they dare all other Tempests meet,  
Yet still they fear the Thunder of your Fleet.  
What Monarch would make Levies and provide  
To exercise his Valour, or his Pride,  
Against some little peremptory Town,  
Whose Bulwarks and Redouts so high are grown,  
That it does rather seem but basely hid  
By Rebels fears than proudly Fortified?  
When he a Town has so by Sluices drowned,  
That 'tis by nought but Tops of Steeples found,  
He may march home, and, poor with triumph, boast  
That what he gained he cheaper might have lost:  
Whilst other Kings, in taking Towns, displease  
Their Subjects, You, for yours, take all the Seas.  
You to divert your cares (those illbred Guests  
Which most unruly grow in Prince's Breasts  
Where they are oft'nest lodged) can lend your Eye  
To Ornament, your Ear to Harmony:  
So Nature, when she Fruit designs, thinks fit  
With beauteous Blossoms to proceed to it:  
And whilst she does accomplish all the Spring,  
Birds to her secret operations sing.  
Kings, to the stretch of thought for ever bend,  
Have changed his Image whom they represent:  
Who in Creation wrought not hard nor long:  
His work is still as easy as 'tis strong:  
As all was by his sudden Fiat wrought,  
So 'tis preserved without his pains of thought.  
From cruel bondage You the Muse's free,  
And yet restrain the Poet's liberty;  
But so restrain him that he now does find  
'Tis but the evil Spirit which you bind.  
The Muse is now, by her conversion, taught  
Gladly to lose that freedom which she sought:  
How wild her flights have been until restrained?  
And, by your power, how greatly has she gained?  
By bad Ideas she did Heroe's paint;  
But now, You of a Muse have formed a Saint.  
Men knew not what they took, or Monarches gave,  
When they did liberty of Subjects crave:  
Even Poets would, like other Subjects, be  
Licentious Writers▪ had they liberty;  
And study all the madness of freewill,  
Which is, old English freedom to do ill.  
The Theatre (the Poet's Magick-Glass  
In which the Dead in vision by us pass;  
Where what the Great have done we do again,  
But with less loss of time and lesser pain)  
Is in the Scene so various now become,  
That the Dramatic Plots of Greece, and Rome,  
Compared to ours, do from their height decline,  
And shrink in all the compass of design.  
Where Poets did large Palaces intent,  
The spacious purpose narrowly did end  
In Houses, where great Monarches had no more  
Removes than Two low Rooms upon a Floor:  
Whose thorough lights were so transparent made,  
That Expectation (which should be delayed  
And kept a while from being satisfied)  
Saw, on a sudden, all that Art should hide;  
Whilst at the plain contrivance all did grieve;  
For it was there no trespass to deceive.  
If we the ancient Drama have refined,  
Yet no intrigues, like labyrinths, are designed,  
In Counterturns so subtle as but few,  
When entered, can get forth without a Clue:  
Where Expectation may entangled be,  
But not so long, as never to get free:  
Where Love throughout the Character does last;  
And such unblemished love as all the chaste  
May still endure with public confidence,  
And not at vanquished Beauty take offence;  
Where Valour we so possible express,  
That we should wrong the Great to make it less.  
If to reform the public Mirror (where  
The Dead, to teach their living Race, appear)  
May to the People useful prove, even this  
(Which but the object of your leisure is  
To respite Care, and which successively  
Three of our last wise Monarches wished to see,  
And in a Century could not be wrought)  
You, in Three years, have to perfection brought.  
If 'tis to height of Art and Virtue grown,  
The form and matter is as much your own  
As is your Tribute with your Image coined:  
You made the Art, the Virtue You enjoined.  
But now methinks, I hear my Pinnace haled!  
Which boldly in a Mist too far has sailed;  
And I discover, through the Glass of Fear,  
That the whole world's High-Admiral is near.  
Too long my withered Laurel I have worn;  
The Poet's Flag, by Grief's foul weather torn:  
Grief which is taught by Reason to complain,  
That I, when all are bettered by your Reign,  
Should seem unworthy, in my faded Bays,  
To carry Fame a Present of your Praise.  
Whoever is more happily designed  
To bear a Present of this noble kind  
(Which Empress Fame to all the world will show,  
And which examined will more valued grow)  
Must from the Muses his Credentials take;  
Who both the Embassy and Present make.  
And, as he knows from whom he comes, so he  
Should not to sovereign- Fame a Stranger be;  
For Fame (whose custom is to have a care  
Only of those who her Familiars are)  
Does with a proud neglect o'er Strangers fly,  
As if unworthy of her Voice or Eye,  
She Seldom is acquainted with the Young,  
And weary is of those who live too long.  
When the wise world, by correspondence, shall  
To gen'ral Council every Poet call  
For prudent choice of this Ambassador,  
Then all that Session it will soon abhor:  
Those who in concord there and glory came,  
Shall part from thence in discord and in shame.  
The young will not agree who is too young,  
Nor th'old determine who has lived too long.  
And as in free Assemblies each may prise  
His single worth to gen'ral prejudice;  
And, in the votes of choosing, every voice  
May stop some progress in the public choice;  
So now (where none their own defects will see,  
And each would for the whole elected be)  
Th'Election likely is to end in vain;  
All losing that which each presumed to gain.  
The Muses proud Ambassador may stay  
His journey ere he does begin his way;  
And keep his great Poetic Present too:  
Which may prove well for Poets, Fame, and You.  
Poets are truly poor, but only then  
When each a Hero ' lacks for his own Pen.  
They pine when mighty Arguments are scant;  
And not when they that trifle, Treasure, want.  
As at such dearth they languish, so they seem  
To swell when they have got a plenteous Theme,  
For rashly then the Muses take their flight:  
Yet as a man, o'erjoyed at sudden sight▪  
Of Treasure found, grows jealous, and, through care  
Lest others in his Prize should claim a share,  
Bears hastily from that which he did find  
Much less away than what he leaves behind:  
So, whilst thus rashly I convey to Fame  
Your Virtues, I so few of them proclaim  
That many more are left behind unpraised,  
Than those which on this Poem's Wings are raised.  
How glad will all discreeter Poets be,  
Because (whilst in their choice they disagree)  
They this imperfect Present shall prevent,  
Which darkens You to whom it lustre meant;  
Or rather it does quite extinguish me;  
Who looking up to You, do only see  
I by a fainting Taper lose my aim,  
And, lifting it too high, put out the flame.  
Fame may rejoice when any Image, wrought  
Thus ill, is never to her Temple brought:  
She should examine what she does receive,  
And Poets watch the worth of what they give.  
Kings raised to Heaven, by an unskilful Pen,  
Scarce look, when made ill Gods, so well as Men.  
The Painter whose Spectators were at strife  
Which the resemblance was, and which the life,  
Deserved high praise when he a Face did draw;  
The Face, which all suppose he often saw;  
But when we mention Homer's high renown,  
Apelies then may lay his Pencil down:  
For Heaven ne'er made but one, who, being blind,  
Was fit to be a Painter of the Mind.  
As justly Poets may with Fame rejoice,  
That Songs of Worthies set below her voice,  
(Where Numbers rise not to Heroic height)  
Are hindered from accompany'ng her flight;  
So You, yourself, may be content to see,  
That though all Poets in your praise agree,  
Yet all, with joint submission, think not one  
Can, at the rate your virtue has begun,  
So follow you with offered Wreaths, as you  
Do other Hero's for their Wreaths pursue.  
Behind your Chariot Poets lag with shame,  
As if the Num'rous-feets of Verse were lame.  
But then 'tis time to cast my Anchor here:  
Who dares beat Sail where none are fit to steer?  
Or how dare Poets venture at your praise?  
For though so great a Trophy none can raise  
But Poets, yet the weight of it they fear,  
As wanting strength to move what they should rear.  
All Painters straight would lay their Pencils by,  
Were they enjoined to paint the Deity.  
Hereafter of what use will Numbers prove,  
If in that Theme we fail which most we love?  
But though this kind of Trophy needs excuse,  
Yet even a Poem is of greater use  
Than any other work by which your name  
We would to all succeeding Times proclaim:  
And, since your name should be perpetual made,  
You must vouchsafe t'accept a Poet's aid.  
Poets did make the mighty Hero's known,  
And drew in full proportions their Renown;  
Which Fame can only, by the power of Verse,  
Ever preserve, and every where disperse.  
FINIS.