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 | Poems on Affairs of State |  |
But numberless and endless 'twere to tell
All the rank Vice that fills this Local Hell.
All which the Phantom does in hast survey,
He scents the Morning Air, and must away,
And on the Eastern Hill he views the breaking day.
Yet e're he goes with a Remorse extreme
Looks back and sighs o're this Jerusalem;
Nor cou'd depart till like the Prophet too,
In whispering Our pronounc'd thrice—wo, wo, wo;
And then methought I hear'd a Hollow Sound,
Like Ecchoes that from Caves and Rocks rebound;
And thus it spake—Full five and twenty years
I Reign'd, without the Noise or Toil of Wars,
Bore all th'Indignities of Factious Power,
And saw my Life in danger every hour;
Yet rather had resign'd it up in Peace,
Than ow'd my Safety to such Brutes as these;
At best a Scare-crow Rebels to affright,
Put them to Action, and scarce one will fight.
All the rank Vice that fills this Local Hell.
All which the Phantom does in hast survey,
He scents the Morning Air, and must away,
And on the Eastern Hill he views the breaking day.
Yet e're he goes with a Remorse extreme
Looks back and sighs o're this Jerusalem;
Nor cou'd depart till like the Prophet too,
In whispering Our pronounc'd thrice—wo, wo, wo;
And then methought I hear'd a Hollow Sound,
Like Ecchoes that from Caves and Rocks rebound;
And thus it spake—Full five and twenty years
I Reign'd, without the Noise or Toil of Wars,
Bore all th'Indignities of Factious Power,
And saw my Life in danger every hour;
Yet rather had resign'd it up in Peace,
Than ow'd my Safety to such Brutes as these;
At best a Scare-crow Rebels to affright,
Put them to Action, and scarce one will fight.
| Poems on Affairs of State | |