A Lash to Disloyalty.  

rouse, rouse my Muse! Why dost thou silent lye,  
When Truth's oppressed, & Mischief soars so high?  
rouse then! and lash with thy severest Rage  
Th'Ingratitude of a Rebellious Age:  
O how Unhappy 'tis, and Dismal, for to see  
This one poor Nation, not from Discord free!  
What hellish Furies does possess your minds,  
That thus to Plotting you are so inclined,  
Against your KING, so Innocent and Just,  
Whose chief delight was to maintain your Trust?  
inhuman Vipers! still Plot with strife  
To take away your great Preservers Life!  
Have you not raised your Fortunes by your Prince?  
And now to seek his Life! O Impudence  
Of Men! What Crime did He,  
That you should thus design his Injury?  

If He at first severity had shown,  
None would presumed for to usurp the Throne,  
Nor yet to aim so high to wear the Crown.   
Those foolish men who do such courses take,  
may curse their first-born day, and cruel Fate,  
Which first misled by Pride, whose sublime Wings  
caused the conspiring 'gainst so good a King.   

Insatiate Monmouth! what made Thee conspire,  
When Thou hadst all things to thy hearts desire,  
Except a Crown? which not being thine by Birth,  
Thou thoughtst to gain it by thy Fathers Death.  
Thy lofty Pride, and too too rigid ways,  
If thou repent not, will make short thy days:  
Therefore beware, let no such thought ensue,  
To mount you higher than what is your due;  
But Trait'rous Armstrong was thy first undoing,  
And, if forsaken not, will be thy ruin;  
'Twas He that did at first thy Thoughts misled,  
To have thy Royal Father murdered;  
Icarus, with whom I may You well compare;  
For He, regarding not his Fathers Care,  
Mounting so high, although his wings so weak,  
Which by the Sun, by its excessive heat,  
quiter pierced were; so head-long in the Main  
He tumbling down, the Waters bore his Name:  
So first, had You your Fathers council took,  
Your Native Land you need not have forsook:  

But Time will come, when You will curse the day  
That you your Father did not then obey,  
Will curse that Armstrong first lead you astray.   
Had Armstrong first,( that traitor) had his due,  
He for his Crimes had suffered long ago;  
Yet 'twas the goodness of a Gracious King  
To spare his Life for his committed Sin;  
And now to prove a traitor! nay, the worst!  
From Heaven surely he must be accursed;  
For thus far God commands, as Fear to Him,  
As for Obedience, Honour to the King.   

Essex, whose Father was so brave and stout,  
That to his last did for the King hold out;  
To die he fairly came; yet feared not death,  
But bravely for his Prince resigned his Breath:  
Such was his Courage, such his Noble mind,  
That thought by Death immortal Life to find:  
But He, as if to blast his Fathers ways,  
Instead of Honour, got himself Dispraise:  
For when in Tower, where he lay convinced  
Of the conspiring 'gainst his Royal Prince;  
His troubled Conscience did him then accuse,  
To think he should so good a King abuse;  
His heart being broken, no longer could contend  
From doing that which proved his tragic end.   


Now talk of Russel: now, O Muse, begin,  
Not for his Praise, but for his Guilt of Sin,  
In his contriving how to kill the King:   
So vain were all his thoughts, and eke so Vile,  
As to press forward for the Dukes Exile:  
A Prince whose Goodness and whose Greatness can  
Scarcely be par'lell'd in the Age of Man:  
Such was his Courage, when in War he fought,  
That still he Honour to the Nation brought:  

But Russel's Pride it was the only thing,  
Which first conspiring caused against his King,  
And was the first Original of Sin.   
For 'twas by Pride he aimed at things so high,  
Which brought him thus so shamefully to die.   

Live long the King, and keep him heaven, I pray,  
From such that seek his Life to take away:  
Increase his days, long flourish still his Crown,  
That Peace and Truth may in the Land abound.    

Printed by N.T. at the entrance into the Old-Sping-Garden, 1983