THE MUSES JOY For the recovery of that Weeping Vine HENRETTA-MARIA, The most Illustrious Queen-Mother, and Her Royal Branches.  
London, Printed in the year, 1660.   

TO THE Virtuous and Right Honourable, ANNA-MARIA, Countess of Shrewsbury.  
Madam,  
YOU might upon the first view condemn this Oblation (coming so late) as unvoluntary; and therefore unacceptable; did it not bring with it an Apology, which common charity cannot refuse, the truth is, this Poem hath struggled for life with no less opposition than Mortality itself; the honest Printer who undertook to give it birth, dying in the very act of its Delivery: where it hath remained these three weeks wrapped in a dead man's sheet, striving for birth like one of those preternatural Issues of the Sun upon the slime of Nilus, part shaped and alive, part without form or motion, and it had deservedly expired with him, had it not born in the Front of it two sacred Signatures of my duty to Her Majesty, and my respect to Your Ladyship. You must needs beg me the Queen's pardon for being guilty of an innocent Homicide, for Her Majesty's sake; which accident hath added to my presumption. What the Ambition of others aims at in their high addresses, I shall not determine; whenever I put on eagle's wings, the Augury of my design is (the natural effect of distance) by soaring high to lessen my own merits, and magnify my obligations. And although I never had the honour to be related to those noble Families the Shrewsburies' and Brudenals (now in a happy conjunction) yet when I hear the high Expressions of both from a Brother and a Sister, I cannot be unconcerned in their debt of duty, or passive in their transportations: but as I am warmed, so I must admire by reflection. This (the greater Her presumption is my Muses second Service to your Ladyship; though yet she never brought an Embassy of ill news, never put your fair eyes to the expense of one pearl. Before she solemnised your auspicious Nuptials: perhaps the dress of that Poem might, the subject could not be troublesome, which was so pleasing to your Ladyship. At this time my Muse celebrates the new espousals of a Royal Widow to her Crown, I wish I could say to her King. Now though your Ladyship be entertained in the Porch, the Dedication of this Poem; yet the fabric, namely the Subject, is part of her Majesty's Revenue; unto whom I need no nearer Access than your Ladyship, your person being as near the Queen as her shadow to her Body, or rather as her Body to her Head; joined not only by propinquity, but by influence also. And now; Madam, I have unbosomed my whole design, which is, that the world by me, and her Majesty by you may know, how much I am her Majesty's loyal Subject, and  
Your Ladyship's humblest Servant, JO. CROUCH.   

THE MUSES JOY For the Recovery of that Weeping Vine HENRETTA MARIA.  

THe Queen returned! more wonders still! a Troy  
Of spoils and blood has built a Greece of joy!  
Dull Age! thy long imprisoned faith release,  
Believe, nay see, that miracles do not cease:  
heavens arm has broke the cloud, made bare & bright  
Hath eased our faith, turned vision into sight.  
But is the Queen arrived? come safely over?  
Then Calais mingle Cliffs, and kiss thy Dover?  
Then France and Christendom be joined to Kent,  
Not by a fast League, but firm Continent.  
But Waves made not this wonder, there hath stood  
'Twixt her and us a wider Sea of Blood:  
This Sea dried up, the Queen might freely pass,  
Her ship moved on a pavement, smooth as glass:  
The waters sensible (as those we please)  
Smile to transport the Queen of th' Narrow Seas.  
Phoebus if ever thou deserved a Bow,  
Or Occidental Sacrifice, 'tis now;  
The East-world to thy perfumed Rising knelt,  
But now the West thy Healing virtue feels:  
The glorious splendour of thy Golden Rays  
Has winged the Hours, and hastened happy days.  
All ominous Meteors spent, this Sixtieth Year  
The Stars drop honey in our Hemisphere.  
Never was Spring so verdant, spruce and gay;  
For Mildews, Manna fell last Month of May:  
Three sent from Heaven to curb unbridled Men:  
One out of Gratitude went to Heaven again:  
Resolved, what careless Subjects lest undone,  
The Father's Funeral should be his Son.  
But the auspicious Powers above conclude  
To mollify this hard Vicissitude:  
Send us fresh Balm to heal that sharp Rebuke,  
Mother for Son, a Queen instead of Duke.  
Venus' a Golden Apple sent before,  
A pledge of her Arrival on our shore:  
Brings in her Arms Henretta too the fair;  
Princes and Princesses a Double pair,  
Exeters' Angel breathed here but a while,  
Babe, Jesus-like, an Infant in Exile!  
Is this that Queen whom a Rebellious Crew  
Sent Bullets after for a kind adieu?  
One bored the place where Majesty did sit,  
And came as near as Heaven would suffer it:  
Had you been present there, you might have seen  
The King of Terrors prostrate to a Queen.  
Such Iron pills the sons of Death and Fate,  
Prescribed to cure the Fevers of a State!  
Is this that living Martyr so hard pressed  
With Injuries, would split a vulgar Breast?  
Wh ' endured Affronts, Indignities and Force,  
An unjust Exile, more unjust Divorce?  
Such a Divorce the world's great eye ne'er saw,  
Writ by the Sword, and sealed by Canon-Law;  
Whose Act might past, and future times outdo,  
When Law and Gospel were divorced too:  
A strange Divorce! where the whole guilt was Love,  
And constancy the cause of such Remove:  
Divorce more monstrous yet! which rends the wife;  
Not from her Husband's Bosom, but his Life.  
You Loyal Shepherdesses, who these Floods,  
Have lived 'mongst Wolves and Satyrs in the Woods;  
'Mongst Ladies of all Trades, without respect,  
Compelled to use their ruder Dialect;  
Spring out with your Diana, O break forth,  
And show the blessed world, not your height, but worth.  
To your long clouded Firmament resort,  
And shine like bright stars in your British Court:  
've now a Mistress, an auspicious Guide,  
To teach you modes of Modesty, not Pride:  
To make you Wise, not in a narrow sense,  
But measured by a Queen's circumference.  
Be like your Gems, not sleeked up for mere sight,  
But Influential too, as well as bright:  
Of which some help the head, some heart, some spleen;  
One Lady cures all these, that's like the Queen.  
Welcome great Princess, by good providence sent  
Home to us, from your Native Banishment!  
Delight to see your Royal Branches twine  
Their Arms about you, their Beloved Vine;  
(That fruitful Vine, whose goodness made it smart;  
That lives, and yet so long has bled at heart.)  
On your Just Throne in serene safety sit;  
Forget all past, except the Benefit.  
The heavens and Earth rejoice at your return.  
You cannot gratify their Joys, and mourn.  
Madam, let no past sufferings make you sad;  
When three Realms now conspire to make you glad;  
Your triumphs bond not here; the general voice  
Of more than Christian World echoes, Rejoice.  
London (long Widow) was espoused last May,  
But till you came kept not her Nuptial day.  
Share Empire with your Sons, our King, and Brother;  
They shall command one Sex, and You the other.  
And now since Cromwell (by a fatal Boon)  
Gasped in his bed too late, and yet too soon!  
Since Bradshaw could not so much mercy win  
To live to Hang and suffer for his sin:  
(Though his and Cromwel's blood together spilt  
Were both too black to expiate their guilt)  
Since divine Justice (so severely kind)  
Has scourged their Drudges, too long left behind!  
Since Nolls whole Reign was but a Dream at best,  
We'ill wind his story up into a Jest.  
When this swollen Phaeton in the full Career  
Of his usurped dominion 'mongst us here;  
Must in a brave his foreign Prancers rule,  
(As if an Ass grown proud would guide a Mule)  
When this Sun's Son fell from his hot Caroche,  
Then the blessed hours prepared the King's approach:  
His panting Heart presaged his tumbling down,  
Not from his Chariot, but a Triple Crown,  
I say a Triple Crown, for that was all,  
(He gave the other to the Cardinal:)  
Whose Diadem ne'er girt his brow, till Dead;  
O thus may Death still crown a Traitor's Head!  
He's now below the Earth, there let him lie,  
There rot, and once more in our Memories die.  
But let our joys bless Heaven for this rich Change,  
A King, Queen, Duke, and virtuous Orange,  
Henretta too; who left her native Air,  
Not to be greater, but more Debonair:  
Wh ' abroad like injured Pilgrims did converse,  
Here chained, there Tenants of the Universe.  
Great England! Great, not in thy breadth or length;  
Protected more by Providence than Strength:  
Thou, in thy little Circle dost contain  
Princes too mighty both for France and Spain.  
O may thy People washed in so much blood,  
Be humble, thankful, loyal, wise and good!  
And may our good Queen never weep again,  
Unless it be for joy she once had pain,  
That once her blessed Womb with a Charles did teem,  
Should both a Crown Inherit and Redeem.  
Let proud Rebellion, sunk as low as Hell,  
For ever There, in its own Region, dwell.   
FINIS.