Classic Poem

Welcome, kind Death: my long tired spirit bear
From hated monarchy's detested air;
And waft me safe to th' happier Stygian land
Where my dear friends with flaming chaplets stand;
And seat me high at Shaftesbury's right hand.
There worshipping, my prostrate soul shall fall.
Oh! for a temple, statues, altars, all!
Volumes, and leaves of brass; whole books of fame!
For all are due to that immortal name.
For my reception then, great shades, make room,
For Sidney does with loads of honor come.
No braver champion, nor a bolder son
Of thunder, ever graced your burning throne.
Survey me, mighty Prince of Darkness, round:
View my hacked limbs, each honorable wound,
The pride and glory of my numerous scars
In Hell's best cause, the old republic wars.
Behold the rich, gray hairs your Sidney brings,
Made silver all in the pursuit of kings.
Think of the royal martyr, and behold
This bold right hand, this Cyclops arm of old,
That labored long, stood blood and war's rough shock,
To forge the ax and hew the fatal block.
Nor stopped we here. Our dear revenge still kept
A spark that in the father's ashes slept,
To break as fiercely in a second flame
Against the son, the heir, the race, the name.
Revenge is godlike, of that deathless mold,
From generation does to generation hold.
Let dull religion and sophistic rules
Of Christian ignorants, conscientious fools,
With false alarms of Heaven's forbidding laws,
Blast the renown of our illustrious cause:
A cause (whate'er dull preaching dotards prate)
Whose only fault was being unfortunate.
Oh, the blessed structure! Oh, the charming toil!
Had not Heav'n's envy crushed the rising pile,
To what prodigious heights had we built on!
So Babel's tower had Solomon's church outshone.
True! my unhappy blood's untimely spilt;
And some soft fools may tremble at the guilt,
As if the poor vicegerent of a God
Were that big name that our ambition awed!
A poor crowned head, and Heav'n's anointed! No!
We stop at naught that souls resolved dare do,
And only curse the weak and failing blow,
Whilst like the Roman Scaevola we stand,
And burn the missing, not the acting, hand.
Nay, the great work of ruin to fulfill,
All arts, all means, all hands are sacred still.
No play too foul to win the glorious game:
Witness the great, immortal Teckley's fame.
In holy wars 'tis all True Protestant
Kings to dethrone, and empires to supplant;
Nay, and the antichristian throne to shake.
Curst monarchy! 'tis famous even to make
The Alcoran the Bible's cause assume,
And Mahomet the prop of Christendom.
Such aid, such helps, sublime rebellion wants:
Rebellion, the great shibboleth of saints,
Which current stamp to Reformation brings;
For all is God With Us that strikes at kings.
Now Charon, land me on th' Elysian coast,
With all the rites of a descending ghost.
A stouter, hardier murmurer ne'er fell
Since the old days of stiff-necked Israel;
Since the cleft earth in her expanded womb
Op'd a broad gulf for mighty Corah's tomb.
Methinks I saw him, saw the yawning deep.
Oh! 'twas a bold descent, a wondrous leap!
More swift the pointed lightning never fell.
One plunge at once t' his death, his grave, his Hell.