Classic Poem

An Answer to a Letter from Sir John Mennis, wherein he jeers him for falling so quickly to the use of the Directory .

Friend thou doest lash me with a story,
A long one too of Directory:
When thou alone deserves the Birch,
That brought'st the bondage on the Church.
Didst thou not treat for Bristol City,
And yield it up? the more's the pity.
And saw'st thou not, how right or wrong
The Common-prayer-book went along?
Did'st thou not scourse, as if enchanted
For Articles Sir Thomas granted?
And barter, as an Author saith,
The Articles oth' Christian Faith?
And now the Directory jostles
Christ out oth' Church and his Apostles;
And tears down the Communion rayles,
That men may take it on their tayles
Imagine, Friend, Bochus the King
Engraven on Sylla's Signet ring,
Delivering up into his hands
Fugurth , and with him, all his Lands;
Whom Sylla took and sent to Rome ,
There to abide the Senates doom.
In the same posture I suppose,
John standing in's Doublet and Hose,
Delivering up amidst the throng
The Common-prayer and Wisedoms song
To hands of Fairfax , to be sent
A Sacrifice to the Parliament.
Thou little thought'st what Jear began,
Wrapt in that Treaty? Busie John
There lurk'd, the Fire that turn'd to Cinder,
The Church her Ornaments to Tinder.
There bound up in that Treaty lyes
The fate of all our Christmass-pyes;
Our Holydaies there went to wrack,
Our Wakes were laid upon their back,
Our Gossips spoons away were lurcht,
Our Feasts and Fees for Women churcht;
All this, and more ascribe we might
To thee at Bristol , wretched Knight.
Yet thou upbraid'st and rayld'st in rime,
On me, for that which was thy Crime.
So froward Children in the Sun,
Amidst their sports some shrew'd turn done,
The faulty Youth begins to prate,
And layes it on his harmlesse Mate.

Dated,
From Nympton where the Cider smiles,
And James has horse as lame as Giles ,
The fourth of May , and dost thou hear?
'Tis as I take the 8th. year
Since Portugal by Duke Braganza
Was cut from Spain without a Hand-saw.