Classic Poem

1691

At dead of night, after an evening ball,
In her own father's lodgings at Whitehall,
As youthful Tullia unregarded lay
By a dull lump of Netherlandish clay,
Whose frozen veins not all her charms could move
(The hero is uncapable of love,
Thanks to a secret gripe he got, when young;
The family had rid the states too long).
Neglected thus, the longing, wishing, queen
Contemplates on the gallant youths she'd seen,
Whose brisk ideas feed her warm desire,
And fancy adds more fuel to her fire:
When lo! the scene upon the sudden turns,
Her blood grows chill, the taper dimly burns;
A trembling seizes all her limbs with fear
At a majestic shade, which does appear,
Draws wide the curtain, and approaches near,
Then thus begins:
" Impious wretch! behold thy mother's ghost,
By fate's permission, come from Stygian coast,
To warn you of that vengeance Heaven provides
To punish unrepenting parricides!
Can quiet slumber ever close thy eyes?
Or is thy conscience sunk too low to rise?
From this same place was not thy aged sire
Compelled by midnight summons to retire?
Then, with a canting, fulsome trick of state,
The world was bantered with an " abdicate";
Had he been murdered, it had mercy shown,
'Tis less to kill a king, than to dethrone:
The miserable in their graves find rest,
But his afflictions cannot be expressed.
So great a monarch to be brought so low,
And his own children strike the fatal blow,
Distracts his soul, and breaks his heart with woe;
Go learn of Afric monsters nature's law,
Whose sacred ties those savage brutes do awe,
A lesson yet unlearned by grand Nassau.
Where are those crimes of which he was accused?
How is the nation gulled, and he abused!
How boldly did some villains sell their king,
Engaging to the next Sanhedrim to bring
Substantial proof of warming-pan intrigue,
Of horrid murders, and a Gallic league!
The senate met, and time has slipped two years,
But no proof made, no witness yet appears.
They did pretend to know the place, when, and how;
Where are those Fergusons and Braddons now?
Those bold defamers are grown hush and still
For lack of evidence, not want of will.
Consider by what men this work is done,
Chief agents in the revolution,
The major part composed of such as these:
Old lechers, atheists, public debauchees,
Traitors proscribed, known cheats, and perjured knaves.
This sanctimonious crew the nation saves;
These blessed reformers have the king dethroned;
Under such Pharisees Judea groaned.
Of natives these; to them a foreign aid
Of vermin, who adore no God but trade,
Insects, who once a monarchy obeyed;
But by rebellion did themselves create
From a poor province to a mighty state;
Unjust and cruel to the last degree,
Griping at wealth by fraud and perfidy;
Barbarous, bloody, where they once trepan,
(Witness Amboyna, and the Isles Japan,
In which last place the monsters did deny
For dear commerce their Christianity).
Can any thing that's good from Holland come,
The very sink and plague of Christendom?
A Dutchman is a rogue; whate'er he seems,
No muddy fountain can yield crystal streams.
Awake, Britannia, guard thy sinking crown,
Which by republicans is pulling down!
Ambitious Orange serves but for a tool;
They set him up, that they themselves may rule.
For, one usurper's title being good,
The right of princes lies not in the blood,
Nor is confined to any certain line.
Possession makes all government divine:
Good pagan doctrine! broached to serve all times;
Success will sanctify the worst of crimes.
In former days, when English kings did err,
The fault was punished in the counselor;
But now poor James is into exile sent,
And not one statesman brought to punishment;
For priests and advocates have wondrous skill
To qualify the same things good or ill,
And can produce, from Scripture and the laws,
Arguments pro and con for any cause.
Night's watchful sentinel here blew his horn,
A certain sign of the approaching morn;
Which summons wandering spirits to retire
Into their prisons of a purging fire.
" I must be gone, " the ghost then said, " Farewell!
What you have seen and heard your sister tell:
Repent your crimes, before it be too late,
And by contrition, shun impending fate. "
Thus having said, the vision disappears,
Leaving the trembling princess drowned in tears.