Classic Poem

How ? Providence? and yet a Scottish crew?
Then Madam Nature wears black patches too:
What? shall our Nation be in bondage thus
Unto a Land that truckles under us?
Ring the bells backward; I am all on fire,
Not all the buckets in a Countrey Quire
Shall quench my rage. A Poet should be fear'd
When angry, like a Comets flaming beard.
And where's the Stoick can his wrath appease
To see his Countrey sicke of Pym's disease;
By Scotch Invasion to be made a prey
To such Pig-wiggin Myrmidons as they?
But that there's charm in verse, I would not quote
The name of Scot , without an Antidote;
Unlesse my head were red, that I might brew
Invention there that might be poyson too.
Were I a drowzie Judge, whose dismall Note
Disgorgeth halters, as a Juglers throat
Doth ribbands: could I (in Sir Emp'ricks tone)
Speak Pills in phrase, and quack destruction:
Or roare like Marshall , that Genevah -Bull,
Hell and damnation a pulpit full:
Yet to expresse a Scot , to play that prize,
Not all those mouth-Granadoes can suffice.
Before a Scot can properly be curst,
I must (like Hocus ) swallow daggers first.
Come keen Iambicks , with your Badgers feet,
And Badger-like, bite till your teeth do meet.
Help ye tart Satyrists, to imp my rage,
With all the Scorpions that should whip this age.
Scots are like Witches; do but whet your pen,
Scratch til the blood come; they'l not hurt you then.
Now as the Martyrs were inforc'd to take
The shapes of beasts, like hypocrites, at stake,
I'le bait my Scot so; yet not cheat your eyes,
A Scot within a beast is no disguise.
No more let Ireland brag, her harmlesse Nation
Fosters no Venome, since the Scots Plantation:
Nor can ours feign'd Antiquitie maintaine;
Since they came in, England hath Wolves againe.
The Scot that kept the Tower, might have showne
(Within the grate of his own brest alone)
The Leopard and the Panther; and ingrost
What all those wild Collegiats had cost
The honest High-shoes, in their Termly Fees,
First to the salvage Lawyer, next to these.
Nature her selfe doth Scotch-men beasts confesse,
Making their Countrey such a wildernesse:
A Land that brings in question and suspense
Gods omnipresence, but that C HARLES came thence:
But that Montrose and Cramfords loyall Band
Atton'd their sins, and christ'ned halfe the Land.
Nor is it all the Nation hath these spots;
There is a Church, as well as Kirk of Scots:
As in a picture, where the squinting paint
Shewes Fiend on this side, and on that side Saint.
He that saw Hell in's melancholie dreame,
And in the twilight of his Fancy's theame,
Scar'd from his sinnes, repented in a fright,
Had he view'd Scotland, had turn'd Proselite.
A Land where one may pray with curst intent,
O may they never suffer banishment!
Had Cain been Scot , God would have chang'd his doome,
Not forc'd him wander, but confin'd him home
Like Jewes they spread, and as Infection flie,
As if the Divell had Ubiquitie.
Hence 'tis, they live at Rovers; and defie
This or that Place, Rags of Geographie.
They're Citizens o'th World; they're all in all,
Scotland's a Nation Epidemicall.
And yet they ramble not to learne the Mode
How to be drest, or how to lisp abroad,
To return knowing in the Spanish shrug,
Or which of the Dutch States a double Jug
Resembles most, in Belly, or in Beard:
(The Card by which the Mariners are stear'd.)
No; the Scots-Errant fight, and fight to eat;
Their Estrich-stomacks make their swords their meat:
Nature with Scots as Tooth-drawers hath dealt,
Who use to hang their Teeth upon their Belt.
Yet wonder not at this their happy choice;
The Serpent's fatall still to Paradise .
Sure England hath the Hemerods, and these
On the North Posterne of the patient seize,
Like Leeches: thus they physically thirst
After our blood, but in the cure shall burst.
Let them not think to make us run o' th' score,
To purchase Villanage, as once before,
When an Act past, to stroake them on the head,
Call them good Subjects, but them Ginger-bread.
Nor gold, nor Acts of Grace; 'tis steel must tame
The stubborn Scot : A Prince that would reclaime
Rebells by yeelding, doth like him (or worse)
Who sadled his own back to shame his horse.
Was it for this you left your leaner soyle,
Thus to lard Israel with Ægypts spoyle?
They are the Gospels Life-guard; but for them,
The Garrison of new Jerusalem,
What would the Brethren do? the Cause! the Cause!
Sack-possets, and the Fundamentall Lawes!
Lord! what a goodly thing is want of shirts!
How a Scotch-stomack, and no meat, converts!
They wanted food and raiment; so they took
Religion for their Seamstresse and their Cook.
Unmask them well; their honours and estate,
As well as conscience, are sophisticate.
Shrive but their Titles, and their money poize,
A Laird and Twenty pence pronounc'd with noise,
When construed, but for a plaine yeoman go;
And a good sober two-pence; and well so.
Hence then you proud Impostors, get you gone,
You Picts in Gentry and Devotion:
You scandall to the stock of Verse! a race
Able to bring the Gibbet in disgrace.
Hyperbolus by suffering did traduce
The Ostracisme, and sham'd it out of use.
The Indian that heaven did forsweare,
Because he heard the Spaniards were there,
Had he but knowne what Scots in hell had been,
He would Erasmus -like have hung between.
My Muse hath done. A Voider for the nonce!
I wrong the Devill, should I picke the bones.
That dish is his: for when the Scots decease,
Hell like their Nation feeds on Barnacles.
A Scot, when from the Gallow-Tree got loose,
Drops into Styx , and turnes a Soland-Goose.