Classic Poem

Upon occasion of the death of captain Douglas burned in one of his majesty's ships at chatham

By Cleveland's Ghost

Of the old heroes when the warlike shades
Saw Douglas marching on the Elysian glades,
They straight consulting, gathered in a ring,
Which of their poets should his welcome sing,
And, as a favourable penance, chose
Cleveland, on whom that task they would impose.
He understood, but willingly addressed
His ready muse to court their noble guest.
Much had he cured the tumour of his vein,
He judged more clearly now, and saw more plain;
For those soft airs had tempered every thought,
And of wise Lethe he had took a draught,
Abruptly he began, to hide his art,
As of his satire this had been a part.
Not so brave Douglas, on whose lovely chin
The early down but newly did begin;
And modest beauty yet his sex did veil,
While envious virgins hope he is a male.
His shady locks curl back themselves to seek:
Nor other courtship knew but to his cheek.
Oft as he in chill Eske or Seine by night
Hardened and cooled those limbs so soft, so white,
Among the reeds, to be espied by him,
The nymphs would rustle; he would forward swim.
They sighed and said, ‘Fond boy, why so untame
That fliest Love's fires, reserved for other flame?’
Fixed on his ship he faced the horrid day,
And wondered much at those that run away:
Nor other fear himself could comprehend
Then, lest heaven fall ere thither he ascend,
But entertains the while his time too short
With birding at the Dutch, as if in sport,
Or waves his sword, and could he them conjúre
Within its circle, knows himself secure.
The fatal bark him boards with grappling fire,
And safely through its port the Dutch retire.
That precious life he yet disdains to save,
Or with known art to try the gentle wave.
Much him the honours of his ancient race
Inspire, nor would he his own deeds deface:
And secret joy in his calm soul does rise,
That Monck looks on to see how Douglas dies.
Like a glad lover the fierce flames he meets,
And tries his first embraces in their sheets.
His shape exact, which the bright flames enfold,
Like the sun's statue stands of burnished gold.
Round the transparent fire about him glows,
As the clear amber on the bee does close.
And as on angels' heads their glories shine,
His burning locks adorn his face divine.
But when in his immortal mind he felt
His altering form and soldered limbs to melt,
Down on the deck he laid himself and died,
With his dear sword reposing by his side:
And on the flaming plank so rests his head
As one that hugs himself in a warm bed.
The ship burns down and with his relics sinks,
And the sad stream beneath his ashes drinks.
Fortunate boy, if e'er my verse may claim
That matchless grace to propagate thy name,
When Oeta and Alcides are forgot
Our English youth shall sing the valiant Scot.
Skip-saddles Pegasus, thou needst not brag,
Sometimes the Gall'way proves the better nag.
Shall not a death so generous now when told
Unite the distance, fill the breaches old?
Such in the Roman Forum, Curtius brave
Galloping down closed up the gaping cave.
No more discourse of Scotch or English race,
Nor chant the fabulous hunt of Chevy Chase.
Mixed in Corinthian metal, at thy flame
Our nations melting, thy colossus frame.
Prick down the point (whoever has the art),
Where Nature Scotland does from England part.
Anatomists may sooner fix the cells
Where life resides, or understanding dwells:
But this we know, though that exceeds our skill,
That whosoever sep'rates them does kill.
Will you the Tweed that sudden bounder call
Of soil, of wit, of manners, and of all?
Why draw we not as well the thrifty line
From Thames, Trent, Humber, or at least the Tyne?
So may we the state corpulence redress,
And little England, when we please, make less.
What ethic river is this wondrous Tweed,
Whose one bank vertue, other vice does breed?
Or what new perpendicular does rise
Up from her stream, continued to the skies,
That between us the common air should bar
And split the influence of every star?
But who considers right will find indeed
'Tis Holy Island parts us, not the Tweed.
Nothing but clergy could us two seclude,
No Scotch was ever like a bishop's feud.
All litanies in this have wanted faith.
There's no Deliver us from the bishop's wrath.
Never shall Calvin pardoned be for Sales,
For Becket's sake Kent always shall have tails.
Who sermons e'er can pacify and prayers?
Or to the joined stools reconcile the chairs?
Though kingdoms join, yet church will kirk oppose,
The mitre still divides, the crown does close.
As in Rogation-Week they whip us round,
To keep in mind the Scotch and English bound.
What th' ocean binds is by the bishop rent,
Their sees make islands in our continent.
Nature in vain us in one land compiles,
If the cathedral still will have its aisles.
Nothing, not bogs, not sands, not seas, not alps,
Sep'rates the world, so as the bishops' scalps.
Stretch for the line, their surcingle alone,
'Twill make a more unhabitable zone.
The friendly loadstone has not more combined,
Than bishops cramped the commerce of mankind.
A bishop will like Mah'met tear the moon,
And slip one half into his sleeve as soon.
The juggling prelate on his Hocus calls,
Shows you first one, then makes that one two balls.
Instead of all the plagues, had bishops come,
Pharaoh at first would have sent Israel home.
From church they need not censure men away,
A bishop's self is an anathema:
Where foxes dung, their earths the badgers yield,
At bishops' musk, even foxes quit the field.
Their rank ambition all this hate has stirred,
A bishop's runnet makes the strongest curd.
What rev'rend things (Lord) are lawn sleeves and ease!
How a clean laundress, and no sermons please!
They wanted zeal and learning, so forsook
Bible and grammar for the service book.
Religion has too long the world depraved,
A shorter way to be by clergy saved.
Believe, but only as the church believes,
And learn to pin your souls upon their sleeves.
(Ah, like Lot's wife they still look back and halt,
And, surpliced, show like pillars too of salt.)
Who that is wise would pulpit-toil endure?
A bishopric is a great Sine-cure.
Enough for them, God knows, to count their wealth,
To excommunicate, and study health.
An higher work is to their call annexed;
The nations they divide, their curates, text.
No bishop? Rather than it should be so,
No church, no trade, no king, no people, no.
All mischief's moulded by these state divines;
Aaron cast calves, but Moses them calcines.
The legion-devil did but one man possess;
One bishop-fiend spirits a whole diocese.
That power alone can loose this spell that ties:
And none but kings can bishops exorcise.
Will you be treated princes, here fall too:
Fish and flesh bishops are your ambigue.
How'er insipid, yet the sauce will mend 'em,
Bishops are very good when in commendam.
If wealth or vice can whet your appetites,
These Templar Lords exceed the Templar Knights.
And in the baron-prelate you have both
Leviathan served up and behemóth.
How can you bear such miscreants should live,
And holy ordure holy orders give?
None knows what god our flamen now adores:
One mitre fits the heads of foúr Moors.
No wonder if the orthodox do bleed,
While Arius stands at th' Athanasian Creed.
What so obdúrate pagan-heretic
But will transform for an archbishopric.
In faith erroneous and in life profane
These hypocrites their silks and linen stain.
Seth's pillars are no antique brick or stone;
But of the choicest modern flesh and bone.
Who views but Gilbert's tiles will reason find
Neither before to trust him nor behind.
How oft hath age his hallowing hands misled,
Confirming breasts and armpits for the head!
Abbot missed bucks, but Sheldon ne'er missed doe:
Nor is our Patriarch whiter than his Snow.
Their company's the worst that every played,
And their religion all but masquerade.
The conscious Primate therefore did not err,
When for a church he built a Theatre.
A congruous dress they to themselves adapt,
Like smutty stories in clean linen wrapped.
Do but their pie-bald lordships once uncase
Of rochets, tippets, copes, and where's their Grace?
An hungry chaplain and a starvèd rat,
Eating their brethren, bishop grow and cat.
But an apocryphal Archbishop Bel
Like snakes, by swall'wing toads, does dragon swell.
Strange was the sight, that Scotch two-headed man
With single body, like the two-necked swan;
And wild disputes betwixt those heads must grow
Where but two hands to act, two feet to go.
Nature in living emblem then expressed
What Britain was between two kings distressed.
But now when one head does both realms control,
The bishop's noddle perks up cheek by jowl.
They, though no poets, on Parnassus dream,
And in their causes think themselves supreme.
King's-head saith this, but bishop's-head that do;
Does Charles the Second reign, or Charles the Two?
Well that Scotch monster and our bishops sort,
(It was musician too, and lived at court).
Hark, though at such a distance what a noise
Shattering the silent air disturbs our joys:
The mitred hubbub against Pluto moot,
The cloven head must govern cloven foot.
Strange boldness! Bishops even there rebel,
And plead their jus divinum though in Hell.
Those whom you hear more clam'rous yet and loud,
Of ceremonies wrangle in the crowd,
And would, like chemists fixing mercury,
Transmute Indifference to Necessity.
To sit is necessary in Parliament,
To preach in diocese, indifferent;
'Tis necessary bishops have their rent,
To cheat the plague-money, indifferent.
New oaths 'tis necessary to invent,
To give new taxes is indifferent.
'Tis necessary to rebabel Paul's,
Indifferent to rob churches of their coals.
'Tis necessary Lambeth never wed,
Indifferent to have a wench in bed;
Such bishops are with all their complement,
Nor necessary, nor indifferent.
Incorrigible among all their pains,
Some sue for tithes of these Elysian plains.
Others attempt (to cool their fervent chine)
A second time to ravish Proserpine.
Even Father Dis, though so with age defaced,
With much ado preserves his postern chaste.
The innocentest mind there thirst alone,
And, uninforced, quaff healths in Phlegeton.
Luxury, malice, superstition, pride,
Oppression, avarice, ambition, Id-
Leness, all the vice that did abound
When first they lived, still haunts them underground.
Had it not been for such a bias strong,
Two nations ne'er had missed the mark so long.
The world in all does but two nations bear,
The Good, the Bad, and those mixed everywhere:
Under each Pole place either of the two,
The Bad will basely, Good will bravely do.
And few indeed can parallel our climes
For worth heroic, or heroic crimes.
The trial would, however, be too nice,
Which stronger were, a Scotch or English vice,
Or whether the same virtue would reflect
From Scotch or English heart the same effect.
Nation is all but name — a shibboleth —
Where a mistaken accent causes death.
In paradise names only Nature showed,
At Babel names from pride and discord flowed;
And ever since men with a female spite,
First call each other names, and then they fight.
Scotland and England! Cause of just uproar,
Do man and wife signify rogue and whore?
Say but a Scot, and straight we fall to sides,
That syllable like a Pict's wall divides.
Rational man! Words, pledges all of peace,
Perverted, serve dissension to increase.
For shame, extírpate from each loyal breast,
That senseless rancour against interest.
One king, one faith, one language, and one isle,
English or Scotch, 'tis all but cross and pile.
Charles, our great soul, this only understands,
He our affections both and will commands.
And where twin sympathies cannot atone,
Knows the last secret how to make us one.
Just so the prudent husbandman who sees
The idle tumult of his factious bees,
The morning dews, and flowers neglected grown,
The hive a comb-case, every bee a drone,
Powders them o'er, till none discern his foes,
And all themselves in meal and friendship lose;
The insect kingdom straight begins to thrive,
And each work honey for the common hive.
Pardon, young hero, this so long transport,
(Thy death more nobly did the same exhort).
My former satire for this verse forget,
The hare's head against the goose giblets set.
I single did against a nation write,
Against a nation thou didst single fight.
My differing crime does more thy vertue raise,
And such my rashness best thy valour praise.
Here Douglas, smiling, said he did intend
After such frankness shown to be his friend,
Forewarned him therefore lest in time he were
Metempsychosed in some Scotch presbyter.