That bawl for freedom in their senseless mood, And still revolt when truth would set them free. License they mean when they cry liberty; For who loves that, must first be wise and good; But from that mark how far they rove we see, For all this waste of wealth, and loss of blood. VIII. TO MR. H. LAWES, ON THE PUBLISHING HIS AIRS. HARRY, whose tuneful and well-measured song First taught our English music how to span Words with just note and accent, not to scan With Midas ears, committing short and long; Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng, With praise enough for Envy to look wan: To after age thou shalt be writ the man, That with smooth air couldst humour best our tongue. 'Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her wing To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, That tunest their happiest lines in hymn or story. Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he woo'd to sing Met in the milder shades of purgatory. IX.-ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHARINE THOMSON, MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED DEC. 16, 1646. WHEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee never, Had ripen'd thy just soul to dwell with God, Meekly thou didst resign this earthly load Of death, call'd life; which us from life doth sever. Thy works, and alms, and all thy good endeavour, Stay'd not behind, nor in the grave were trod; But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod, Follow'd thee up to joy and bliss for ever. Love led them on; and Faith, who knew them best Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams And azure wings, that up they flew so drest And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes Before the Judge; who thenceforth bid thee rest, And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams. X.-TO THE LORD GENERAL FAIRFAX. FAIRFAX, whose name in arms through Europe rings, Filling each mouth with envy or with praise, And all her jealous monarchs with amaze And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings; Thy firm unshaken virtue ever brings Victory home, though new rebellions raise Their hydra heads, and the false North displays Her broken league to imp their serpent wings. O, yet a nobler task awaits thy hand, (For what can war but endless war still breed?) Till truth and right from violence be freed, And public faith clear'd from the shameful braud Of public fraud. In vain doth Valour bleed, While Avarice and Rapine share the land. XI. TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL. CROMWELL, Our chief of men, who through a cloud And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud sued; While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued, And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud, And Worcester's laureat wreath. Yet much re mains To conquer still; Peace hath her victories No less renown'd than War: new foes arise Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains. Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw. XII. TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER. VANE, young in years, but in sage counsel old, The fierce Epirot and the African bold; The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd; Then to advise how War may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage: besides to know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learn'd, which few have done: The bounds of either sword to thee we owe: XIII. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEMONT. AVENGE, O Lord, thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones, Forget not in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes SOW O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow A hundred fold, who, having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe. XIV.-ON HIS BLINDNESS. WHEN I consider how my light is spent |
