These virtues Galba in a stranger sought And Piso to adopted empire brought.
How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express That must his sufferings both' regret and bless? For when his early valour Heaven had crost, And all at Worcester but the honour lost, Forced into exile from his rightful throne, He made all countries where he came his own, And, viewing monarchs' secret arts of sway, A royal factor for their kingdoms lay. Thus banished David spent abroad his time,
When to be God's anointed was his crime,
And, when restored, made his proud neighbours rue
Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.
Nor is he only by afflictions shown
To conquer others' realms, but rule his own; Recovering hardly what he lost before,
His right endears it much, his purchase more. Inured to suffer ere he came to reign, No rash procedure will his actions stain. To business ripened by digestive thought, His future rule is into method brought, As they who first proportion understand With easy practice reach a master's hand. Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honoured name of Counseller;
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind, We light alone in dark afflictions find. In such adversities to sceptres trained,
The name of Great his famous grandsire gained: Who, yet a king alone in name and right, With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight; Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers, As holy and as Catholic as ours:
Till Fortune's fruitless spite had made it known Her blows not shook but riveted his throne.
Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,
No action leave to busy chronicles:
Such, whose supine felicity but makes
In story chasms, in epoches mistakes,
O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down Till with his silent sickle they are mown. Such is not Charles his too too active age, Which, governed by the wild distempered rage Of some black star infecting all the skies, Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise. Tremble, ye nations who, secure before,
Laughed at those arms that 'gainst our selves we bore; Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail, Our Lion now will foreign foes assail, With alga who the sacred altar strows?
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes, A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain, A lamb to you the tempests of the main.
For those loud storms that did against him roar
Have cast his shipwracked vessel on the shore. Yet, as wise artists mix their colours so
That by degrees they from each other go,
Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white Without offending the well-cozened sight,
So on us stole our blessed change, while we The effect did feel but scarce the manner see.
Frosts that constrain the ground and birth deny To flowers that in its womb expecting lie Do seldom their usurping power withdraw, But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw: Our thaw was mild, the cold not chased away, But lost in kindly heat of lengthened day. Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive, But what we could not pay for freely give. The Prince of Peace would, like himself, confer A gift unhoped without the price of war: Yet, as He knew His blessing's worth, took care That we should know it by repeated prayer,
Which stormed the skies and ravished Charles from thence, As Heaven it self is took by violence.
Booth's forward valour only served to show
He durst that duty pay we all did owe; The attempt was fair, but Heaven's prefixed hour Not come so, like the watchful travellour That by the moon's mistaken light did rise, Lay down again and closed his weary eyes.
'Twas Monk, whom Providence designed to loose Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints that watched this turning scene Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean To see small clues draw vastest weights along, Not in their bulk but in their order strong. Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore Smiles to that changed face that wept before. With ease such fond chimeras we pursue As Fancy frames for Fancy to subdue; But when ourselves to action we betake,
It shuns the mint, like gold that chymists make. How hard was then his task, at once to be What in the body natural we see
Man's architect distinctly did ordain
The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain, Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense, The springs of motion from the seat of sense. 'Twas not the hasty product of a day, But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay. He, like a patient angler, ere he strook, Would let them play a while upon the hook. Our healthful food the stomach labours thus, At first embracing what it straight doth crush. Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude, While growing pains pronounce the humours crude: Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill, Till some safe crisis authorize their skill. Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear
To scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear, And guard with caution that polluted nest Whence Legion twice before was dispossest:
Once sacred House, which when they entered in,
They thought the place could sanctify a sin;
Like those that vainly hoped kind Heaven would wink, 185 While to excess on martyrs' tombs they drink.
And as devouter Turks first warn their souls To part, before they taste forbidden bowls,
So these, when their black crimes they went about,
First timely charmed their useless conscience out. Religion's name against it self was made; The shadow served the substance to invade. Like zealous Missions, they did care pretend Of souls in show, but made the gold their end. The incensed powers beheld with scorn from high An heaven so far distant from the sky,
Which durst with horses' hoofs that beat the ground And martial brass belie the thunder's sound. 'Twas hence at length just vengeance thought it fit To speed their ruin by their impious wit; Thus Sforza, cursed with a too fertile brain, Lost by his wiles the power his wit did gain. Henceforth their fogue must spend at lesser rate Than in its flames to wrap a nation's fate. Suffered to live, they are like Helots set A virtuous shame within us to beget; For by example most we sinned before And glass-like clearness mixed with frailty bore. But since, reformed by what we did amiss, We by our sufferings learn to prize our bliss; Like early lovers, whose unpractised hearts Were long the May-game of malicious arts, When once they find their jealousies were vain, With double heat renew their fires again. 'Twas this produced the joy that hurried o'er Such swarms of English to the neighbouring shore To fetch that prize by which Batavia made So rich amends for our impoverished trade. Oh, had you seen from Scheveline's barren shore, Crowded with troops and barren now no more,
Afflicted Holland to his farewell bring True sorrow, Holland to regret a king; While waiting him his royal fleet did ride, And willing winds to their lowered sails denied, The wavering streamers, flags, and Standard out, The merry seamen's rude but cheerful shout, And last the cannons' voice that shook the skies, And, as it fares in sudden ecstasies,
At once bereft us both of ears and eyes. The Naseby, now no longer England's shame, But better to be lost in Charles his name, Like some unequal bride in nobler sheets, Receives her lord; the joyful London meets The princely York, himself alone a freight;
The Swiftsure groans beneath great Gloucester's weight: 235 Secure as when the halcyon breeds, with these He that was born to drown might cross the seas. Heaven could not own a Providence, and take The wealth three nations ventured at a stake. The same indulgence Charles his voyage blessed Which in his right had miracles confessed. The winds that never moderation knew, Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or out of breath with joy could not enlarge
Their straightened lungs, or conscious of their charge. 245 The British Amphitrite, smooth and clear,
In richer azure never did appear,
Proud her returning Prince to entertain
With the submitted fasces of the main.
And welcome now, great Monarch, to your own!
Behold the approaching cliffs of Albion.
It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it, the land approacheth you.
The land returns, and in the white it wears
The marks of penitence and sorrow bears. But you, whose goodness your descent doth show Your heavenly parentage and earthly too,
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