A POEM UPON HIS MAJESTY'S CORONATION the 23. of April 1661. Being St. George's day.  
— humano generi Natura benigni  
Nil dedit, aut tribuet moderato principe majus:  Buchan. Geneth. Jacobi Regis. 
LONDON, Printed for Gabriel Bedel and Thomas Collins, near the Middle-Temple-Gate: 1661.   

To His Sacred Majesty.  

IF elder times could to St. George allow  
A double Feast, what shall we then add now?  
Now that another George with better right  
Then that suspected Cappadocian Knight;  
May claim our Nation's patronage, or share  
At least the glories of the Calendar;  
When now our Royal Charles, as good as great,  
Hath chose this day t' ascend the regal Seat:  
As it falls out i'th' Roman offices,  
Where two Saints meet, the greater drowns the less.  
Who yet commemorations duly share;  
So though the day to Charles his Crown adhere:  
Thou George shalt never unremembered be,  
Still Tropaeophorus shall be fixed on thee.   

Ye heavens that long have wept th' untimely fall  
Of Gloucester, and his sister's Funeral:  
Put on your purest azure, make't appear,  
As in our griefs, you in our joys do share:  
And thou bright Sun comply with our desires,  
Dispense thy clearest inoffensive fires:  
Only strike Envy blind, that will not see  
Charles is heaven's care, and Earth's felicity.   

My prayer is heard, the day serene shall be  
As fair-eyed Peace, or prosperous Loyalty,  
Nature must be restrained, and storms suspended  
Till the great Rites and Festival be ended:  
So the obedient waters stand a wall  
Till Israel's march be past, and then they fall:   

While various entertainments cause your stay,  
Dread Sir, let it be lawful to survey  
Beside your native Titles to a Crown  
How God by more designed you to the Throne.   

Impatient man, 'tis true, thinks each distress  
Forty years' travel in the wilderness;  
But Canaan once obtained, he finds th'intent  
Had more of kindness in't, than punishment:  
Peril by War in Worc'sters fatal day,  
Flight, that no Council brooks, nor wise delay,  
Pursuit, as close as gold or threats can make,  
To bribe poor men, and women's faith to shake,  
Perils by sea, corrupted Servant-spies,  
False friends at home, abroad unkind Allies;  
These and a thousand Accidents there lay  
So many fiery Serpents in your way,  
Yet looking up you lived; and in an hour  
Man thought not of, a weak despised power  
Confounds the mighty, doth by arts assuage  
The mutinous soldier, and the people's rage,  
Works their desires, till like a lovesick maid,  
They grow impatient that they are delayed  
Their Prince's sight, and labour who shall bring  
Their earliest tribute to their injured King;  
God (said your wise great minister of state)  
Would not have done so much for one ingrate,  
For one he did not love, and will defend  
'Gainst all the force bad men and devils can send.   

But every personal blessing heaven bestows  
Upon good Princes, to their Subjects flows;  
Their very sufferings rightly understood  
Are all diffusive to their people's good.  
After a tedious exile undergone  
Malcome assumed his murdered Father's Throne,  
And Scotland reaped from that calamity  
Th' effects of Justice, and of piety;  
And you, great Sir, distressed in foreign parts,  
Return improved in all the Kingly Arts;  
Courts are luxuriant soils where virtues seeds  
In youth are easy overrun with weeds;  
But trouble, though the travail be severe,  
Hath glory oft i'th' birth to be its Heir.   

Time was (and 'twas a tedious time the while)  
The people's terror, was the Rulers smile;  
When armed Keepers of our Liberty  
Would tell imprisoned men that they were free,  
When false Protectors would again obtrude  
For verbal freedom, real servitude;  
When Dicaearchus gods both did adore,  
Iniquity, and thirst of humane gore;  
But now the Head and Members correspond,  
Aptly united by their legal Bond;  
Good is no longer good, that doth not bring  
The people freedom, Honour to the King;  
Nor is that good that benefits the State,  
If Church-revenues it exterminate;  
Justice the centre hath, and doth comply  
With all the points of the Periphery;  
Thus, Royal Sir, you thought you had not done  
When civil right's restored, the Church alone  
Should unregarded weep, and Caesar's due  
Obtained, 'twas just that God should have his too;  
Order his due, and holy Rites repair,  
A decent House, and a considerate Prayer;  
The Churches care you have derived from yours  
To pious, reverend, learned Confessors:  
If Sir your Royal Father can look down  
Upon the rays of Your exalted Crown,  
Sure 'twill augment his joys to see You stand  
The Faith's Defender from his last command;  
Which he foresaw at your return would be  
Your kingdom's, and your own security.   

But oh what words can speak your charity!  
Your martyred father's blood for blood did cry,  
And must be heard, Justice and Nature call,  
That to appease his Ghost some Victims fall;  
And yet for blood of that unvalued price  
They were too thin, too lean a sacrifice:  
But all your personal wrongs you did forgive,  
And gave them life that would not have you live;  
So the kind Balsom-tree receives a wound,  
And makes the hand that gave it whole and sound;  
So the Palmeto pierced, new strength confers  
By'ts Sovereign juice to dying Travellers.   

France, Holland, Flanders, Germany you viewed,  
Saluted Spain; and yet by none subdued  
Came purely English home, and from each clime  
You brought their virtues with you, not their crime;  
Thus whilst profaneness, oaths, debauched excess  
Your own example, and Your Laws suppress,  
You do oblige us by innumerous bands  
For your own goodness first, and then the Lands.  
The Muses, long disordered by their fears,  
And had no moisture left them but their tears,  
From your best influence shall numbers raise  
T'outlast the Cedar, and reserve the Bays:  
The Seaman's Art, and his great end, Commerce  
Through all the corners of the Universe,  
Are not alone the subject of Your care,  
But Your delight, and You their Polar-star:  
And even Mechanic Arts do find from you  
Both entertainment and improvement too:  
As by its genial heat the Sun doth bring  
To the cold Muscovite a present Spring;  
So wonders wait where e'er You raise Your head,  
You cheer the drooping, and revive the dead.   

Such should the Prince be, not whom Civil War  
And Nations ruined Liberties prefer;  
But Peace, and Heaven, by prayer prevailed upon,  
Do usher to the triumphs of a Crown;  
And such a one had Brutus lived to see  
He would have loved as his dear Liberty:  
Old sullen Cato gladly would have made  
His gay appearance in your Cavalcade,  
Hugged Your best Citizens, that had decreed  
Triumphal Arches as Your virtue's meed;  
And Paetus had inscribed, had he been here,  
On each, To Jove your great Deliverer;  
This on their hearts do all Your Liegemen bring,  
Whilst their glad mouths Jo Triumph sing  
To You great Sir, that thus deserve a Crown,  
Before you would be pleased to put it on.   

That Royal Sir remains, and is the care  
Your Prelate's claim, from whose prevailing Prayer  
And sacred Unction may You be endued  
With Glory, Holiness and fortitude,  
May You have all assistance from above,  
And may You always live, Your people love,  
Your foes dismay if any dare to stir,  
And Europe own you for her Arbiter:  
Then let some daring Muse hereafter rise  
And teach the World your bloodless Victories;  
Sing how in Grace, your Empire's Base was set,  
So Jove's first styled the good, and then the great;  
Sing how some Princes of your Neighbour France  
By single virtues did their name advance,  
The great, the godly, hardy, wise, the just,  
You whom a noonday star declared August,  
Cannot to such a diminution fall  
To be denominate from one, but all.   
FINIS.