And fearful lest the girding bands of power
O'erstrain'd should rupture 'mid confusion wild,
Sage Cecil pleads in vain. With vouching such
And testimony clear, I do admire
The root of that acclaim so loud and fierce
Sung to this woman rule.
Of wasting malady, if the rackt frame
With tedious anguish worn, chance to embrace
Speedy release of grief; then gladness flows
Unmeasur'd,* and the buoyant patient proves
That sweetest joy in nature, sudden rest
From pang supreme: but yet a hidden harm
Within the happy seeming front may lurk,
Of unaccomplish'd cure. Thus England snatch'd
From parted mouth of Babylonish bear,†
Frolic'd like playful lamb, and her lot deem'd
Upon the rolls of time, brightest and best :
Altho' the hierarchal‡ wolves behind
Alluding to the ebullition of approbation of this reign.
In Edward's time, and afterwards, in commencement of Elizabeth's reign.
Bishops and high commission court.
Her sullen coasts infest. The worshipper
Whose mind in sin is bound, and desolate ;*
Whose
eye with edged ruth, to that Power looks The mercy-typing cherubim between,
Knows him a sire, with gifts exub'rant fraught
And not his hand alone lifts up to heaven,
But bleeding heart and to his farthest wish
He finds the treasuries of Zion meet
His measureless abyss of need to store;
And so of love and want constrain'd, he kneels All powerless to withhold the cry of prayer. Yet jealous of the honour of his God,
Each wayward fancy, as a foe he counts,
Would pluck him from his scrupled line of praise. And, if so captious e'er of roving thought,
From idol worship, the associate pitch
Of sin and fearful folly, he recoils
As from the gather'd snake: how hateful then
Papistic ritual to his soul, which wrests
To handiwork the glory of the blest ;‡
copes the heaven's virtue, and confers
Upon a worm, omnipotence to save.
Th' Eternal in his rounds of love that meets
* A tender conscience forced.
↑ Exod. xx. 4.
By Supererogation, &c. &c.
With reaving purpose, and hairbrain'd intent,
To shift his honour to proud human brows,
And seems to say, "Deliver," in an act
Of all beneath the smit and sorrowing sun,
Most heinous and accurs'd; at which the mind,
Refusing consolation, thinks to see
Th' impure and central globe in sunder cleft,
And all the souls of earth-born men translate
To gloomy nothing, or repriev'd and bar'd,
Reveal'd in chaos to perpetual scorn.
To simple heart thus bred, and newly fledg'd
To farthest bourne to fly from papal guilt;
What could the sumptuous stateliness retain'd
From Romish models by the mitred Lords
Of England's spotted sanctuary prove,
But mortal poison to his loathing lips.
The pompous consecrations, and the cross
Us'd as a heathenish mark, the crook of knee
Giv'n to dull matter,† as to throne of heaven;
Vestments and paintings, and unknown degrees
Of clerical preferment, with a host
• Of Churches and Chapels, &c. &c.
At the Altar at Communion.
Archbishops, Deans, &c. &c.
Of scenic ritual, and unscriptural creed,*
For continuity of carnal rule ;-
His soul could not away with, but heart-smit,
He sicken'd at the sight. The Lords nathless,
And this Commandress+ of the English fates,
Fraught as with papistry, unjustly seized,
And worthiest liegemen of the state infring'd;
Guiltless of ought, but abjuration meek,
Of conscience-scrupled rite: to prison hal'd
For such a cause; and judg'd at bar morose
Of some bemodern'd Caiaphas; consigned
Therefrom to branded brows, and massy mulcts,
Or exil'd far beyond inclement seas.
Thus was the salt of England's commonwealth
Bemir'd and trampled by the foot of pride.
And he that did not frolic and profane
The day that God doth challenge as his own,
By mock unseemly, and lascivious sport,
As by their godless law requir'd and held,
Of lynx-ey'd power was mark'd, and might debate of finding comfort beneath other skies.
* Services at Baptism, Burials, Visiting the Sick, &c. &c. + Elizabeth.
O blinded counsels of a blindfold Queen!
Unwise to note, that the observant watch,
Punctual and true of that transcendent day,
Strains as a brimmed barrier, heaven stay'd,
The flood of ills against, that would o'ertop
And drown a christian realm. And that the scant
And sullen pittance, which man would allot
Of occupance, and thought penuriously,
The slow-pac'd duties of that day unto,
Cramps in fulfilment its results benign.
Lukewarmness but th' auspicious power offends
Who form'd the Sabbath, and a turbid stream
Of thought profane and pious, dubious blent,
Suits not its holy and sequester'd frame.
For God this day did set,* and twice his hand
Upon the radiant tablet grav'd its bond;
And on the holy Seventh he did rest,
Who resteth never 'mid eternal years,
His giant labour done, while teeming worlds Prosper'd and smil'd around. And man may seal The fortunate election, and recall
|