Classic Poem

To speak in wet-shod eyes, and drowned looks,
Sad broken accents, and a vein that brooks
No spirit, life, or vigour, were to own
The crush and triumph of affliction;
And creeping with Themistocles to be
The pale-fac'd Pensioners of our enemy,
No 'tis the glory of the Soul to rise
By falls, and at rebound to pierce the skies.
Like a brave Courser standing on the sand
Of some high-working Fretum , views a land
Smiling with sweets upon the distant side,
Garnish'd in all her gay embroydered pride,
Larded with Springs, and fring'd with curled Woods,
Impatient, bounces in the cap'ring flouds,
Big with a nobler fury than that stream
Of shallow violence he meets in them;
Thence arm'd with scorn and courage ploughs a way
Through the impostum'd billows of the Sea;
And makes the grumbling Surges slaves to oar
And waft him safely to the further shoar:
Where landed, in a soveraign disdain
He turns back, and surveys the foaming main,
While the subjected waters flowing reel,
Ambitious yet to wash the Victor's heel.
In such a noble Equipage should we
Embrace th' encounter of our misery.
Not like a field of corn, that hangs the head
For every tempest, every petty dread.
Crosses were the best Christians arms: and we
That hope a wished Canaan once to see,
Must not expect a carpet-way alone
Without a red-sea of affliction.
Then cast the dice: Let's foord old Rubicon ,
Caesar 'tis thine, man is but once undone.
Tread softly though, least Scyllah's ghost awake,
And us i'th' roll of his Proscriptions take.
Rome is revived, and the Triumvirate
In the black Island are once more a State;
The City trembles: there's no third to shield,
If once Augustus to Antonius yield,
Law shall not shelter Cicero , the Robe
The Senate: Proud successe admits no Probe
Of Justice to correct, or quare the fate
That bears down all as illegitimate;
For whatsoere it lists to overthrow,
It either finds it, or else makes it so.
Thus Tyranny's a stately Palace , where
Ambition sweats to climbe and nustle there;
But when 'tis enter'd, what hopes then remain?
There is no Salliport to come out again.
For Mischief must rowle on, and gliding grow,
Like little Rivulets that gently flow
From their first bubbling springs, but still increase
And swell their Chanel as they mend their pace;
Till in a glorious tyde of villany
They over-run the banks, and posting fly
Like th' bellowing Waves in tumults, till they can
Display themselves in a full Ocean.
And if blind rage shall chance to miss its way,
Bring stock enough alone to make a Sea.
Thus trebble treasons are secur'd and drown'd
By lowder cryes of deeper mouth and sound.
And high attempts swallow a puny plot,
As Cannons overwhelm the smaller shot.
Whiles the deaf senceless World inur'd a while
(Like the Catadupi at the fall of Nile )
To the fierce tumbling wonder, think it none,
Thus Custom hallows Irreligion!
And stroaks the patient beast till he admit
The now-grown-light and necessary Bit.
But whither do I ramble? Gauled times
Cannot endure a smart hand ore their crimes
Distracted age? What Dialect or fashion
Shall I assume? to passe the approbation
Of thy censorious Synod; which now sit
High Areopagites to destroy all wit?
I cannot say, I say, that I am one
Of th' Church of Ely-house , or Abington ,
Nor of those precious Spirits that can deal
The Pomegranates of grace at every meal.
No zealous Hemp-dresser yet dipp'd me in
The Laver of adoption from my sin.
But yet if inspiration or a tale
Of a long-wasted six hours length prevail
A smooth Certificate from the sister-hood,
Or to be termed holy before good,
Religious malice, or a faith 'thout works
Other than may proclaim us Jews or Turks:
If these, these hint at any thing? Then, then
Whoop! my dispairing Hope come back agen:
For since the inundation of grace,
All honesty's under water, or in chase.
But 'tis the old worlds dotage, thereupon
We feed on dreams, imagination,
Humours, and cross-grain'd passions which now reign
In the decaying elements of the brain.
'Tis hard to coin new fancies, when there be
So few that lanch out in discovery.
Nay Arts are so far from being cherished,
There's scarce a Colledge but has lost its Head ,
And almost all its Members: O sad wound!
Where never an Artery could be judged sound!
To what a height is Vice now towred? When we
Dare not miscall it an Obliquitie?
So confident, and carrying such an awe,
That it subscribes it self no lesse then Law?
If this be Reformation then? The great
Account pursued with so much bloud and sweat?
In what black lines shall our sad story be
Deliver'd over to posterity?
With what a dash and scar shall we be read?
How has Dame Nature in us suffered?
Who of all Centuries the first age are
That sunk the world for want of due repair?
When first we issued out in cryes and tears,
(Those salt presages of our future years)
Head-long we dropt into a quiet calm;
Times crown'd with rosie Garlands, spice and balm,
Where first a glorious Church and mother came,
Embrac'd us in her armes, gave us a name
By which we live, and an indulgent brest,
Flowing with stream to an eternal rest.
Thus ravish'd, the poor Soul could not guess even,
Which was more kind to her yet, earth or heaven.
Or rather wrapped in a pious doubt
Of heaven, whether she were in or out.
Next the Great Father of our Country brings
His blessing too, (even the Best of Kings )
Safe and well-grounded Laws to guard our peace,
And nurse our virtues in their just increase;
Like a pure Spring from whom all graces come,
Whose bounty made it double Christendome:
Such and so sweet were those Halcyon dayes,
That rose upon us in our Infant rayes;
Such a composed State we breathed under,
We only heard of Jove , nere felt his thunder.
Terrors were then as strange, as love now grown,
Wrong and Revenge liv'd quietly at home.
The sole contention that we understood,
Was a rare strife and war in doing good.
Now let's reflect upon our gratefulness,
How we have added, or (O !) made it less,
What are th' improvements? what our progress, where
Those handsom acts that say that some men were?
He that to antient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dies banq'rupt on the score.
For Father's Crests are crowned in the Son,
And glory spreads by propogation.
Now virtue shield me! where shall I begin?
To what a labyrinth am I now slipp'd in?
What shall we answer them? or what deny?
What prove? or rather whither shall we fly?
When the poor widdow'd Church shall ask us where
Are all her honours? and that filial care
We owed so sweet a Parent as the Spouse
Of Christ , which here vouchsafed to own a house?
Where are the Boanerges? and those rare
Brave sons of consolation? which did bear
The Ark before our Israel , and dispence
The heavenly Manna with such diligence?
In them the prim'tive Motto's come to passe,
Aut mortui sunt, aut docent literas.
Bless'd Virgin , we can only say we have
Thy Prophets Tombes among us, and their grave.
And here and there a man in colours paint,
That by thy ruines grew a mighty Saint .
Next Caesar some accounts are due to thee,
But those in Bloud already written be;
So loud and lasting, in such monstrous shapes,
So wide the never to be clos'd wound gapes;
All ages yet to come with shivering, shall
Recite the fearfull pres'dent of thy fall.
Hence we confute thy tenant Solomon ,
Vnder the Sun a new thing hath been done.
A thing before all pattern, all pretence
Of rule or copy: Such a strange offence
Of such original extract, that it bears
Date only from the Eden of our years.
Laconian Agis! we have read thy fate,
The violence of the Spartan love and hate.
How Pagans trembled at the thought of thee,
And fled the horror of thy tragedie;
Thyestes cruel feast, and how the Sun
Shrunk in his golden beams that sight to shun.
The bosoms of all Kingdoms open lye,
Plain and emergent to th' inquiring eye.
But when we glance upon our native home,
As the black Center to whom all points come,
We rest amazed, and silently admire
How far beyond all spleen ours did aspire.
All that we dare assert, is but a cry
Of an exchanged peace for Liberty;
A secret term by inspiration known,
A mist that brooks no demonstration,
Unlesse we dive into our purses, where
We quickly find Our Freedom purely dear.
But why exclaim you thus? may some men say,
Against the times? when equal night and day
Keep their just course? the seasons still the same?
As sweet as when from the first hand they came?
The influence of the Stars benigne and free,
As at first Peep up in their infancie?
'Tis not those standing motions that divide
The space of years, not the swift hours that glide
Those little particles of age, that come
In thronging Items that make up the Sum ,
That's here intended; But our crying crimes,
Our Monsters that abominate the times.
'Tis we that make the Metonimie good
By being bad, which like a troubled floud
Nothing produce but slimy mire and dirt,
And impudence that makes shame malepert.
To travel further in these wounds that lye
Rankling, though seeming closed, were to deny
Rest to an ore-watch'd world, and force fresh tears
From stench'd eyes, new alarum'd by old fears.
Which if they thus shall heal and stop, they be
The first that ere were cur'd by Lethargie .
This only Axiom from ill Times increase
I gather, There's a time to hold ones peace .