 | Poems by Robert Gomersall |  |
When will Vice faile? whē shall we see th'event
Of wicked acts as bad as the Intent?
As yet the worst are prosperous, and worse,
The good as yet have never miss'd their curse:
Review the Levites wife, and you shall see
When she had forfeited her honesty,
Her father entertain'd her; but once more
When she was come to what she left before,
Her Lord and Vertue, when that all her strife
Shall be to gaine the name of a good wife,
Gibeah will not harbour her; O poore!
Gibeah were guiltlesse had it done no more:
But Gibeah will murder her; review
The Campe awhile, and that th'campe is true
Which was in her; Twice had that army try'd
The valour of their enemies, and twice dy'd
The fields with their best blood, so hardly crost
That they have fought no oftner then th'have lost:
And yet their cause was best: neither were they
The onely people which have lost the day,
Which they deserv'd to winne: search the records
Of every Age, and every Age affords
Examples of like strangenesse: who can tell
What the Assyrian did to Jsrael?
How in despite of all their lofty towers,
(Which hop'd a standing to the last of hours)
He made one houre their last: unlucky howre,
Where vice shew'd what't could do when it had power.
The sword did sport with lifes, nor were they such
Whose losse or preservation did not much
Pertaine unto the State: but the Kings sonnes
In the same time, the same Pavilions,
By the same tyrant are inforc'd to die,
And which exceeds all, in their father eye.
Poore Zedekiahs kingdomes first is gone
And then his heyre's, O harsh inversion
If he had lost them first, it might be thought
His kingdomes losse would not have mov'd him ought
He would have made the best of th'other crosse
Esteeming it an easing, not a losse.
As he might now to be depriv'd of sight
When he should covet the kind screene of Night,
Betweene his woes and him: if in his mind
He saw, it was a blessing to be blind:
That then he should be forc't to see no more
When he could not see what he saw before,
This Israel suffer'd, and this Ashur did,
And yet I dare affirme it was not hid
No not from Ashur ev'n in his owne doome
That they were better who were overcome,
Or if the goodnesse to his side he drawes,
'Tis that his sword was better, not his cause
I could goe on in presidents as true,
Actions betweene the Heathen and the Iew,
Betweene the Turke and Christian: but what need
To shew there is no birth without a seed?
No speech without a tongue? or if there be
More truths of such knowne perspicuity.
Of wicked acts as bad as the Intent?
As yet the worst are prosperous, and worse,
The good as yet have never miss'd their curse:
Review the Levites wife, and you shall see
When she had forfeited her honesty,
Her father entertain'd her; but once more
When she was come to what she left before,
Her Lord and Vertue, when that all her strife
Shall be to gaine the name of a good wife,
Gibeah will not harbour her; O poore!
Gibeah were guiltlesse had it done no more:
But Gibeah will murder her; review
The Campe awhile, and that th'campe is true
Which was in her; Twice had that army try'd
The valour of their enemies, and twice dy'd
The fields with their best blood, so hardly crost
That they have fought no oftner then th'have lost:
57
The onely people which have lost the day,
Which they deserv'd to winne: search the records
Of every Age, and every Age affords
Examples of like strangenesse: who can tell
What the Assyrian did to Jsrael?
How in despite of all their lofty towers,
(Which hop'd a standing to the last of hours)
He made one houre their last: unlucky howre,
Where vice shew'd what't could do when it had power.
The sword did sport with lifes, nor were they such
Whose losse or preservation did not much
Pertaine unto the State: but the Kings sonnes
In the same time, the same Pavilions,
By the same tyrant are inforc'd to die,
And which exceeds all, in their father eye.
Poore Zedekiahs kingdomes first is gone
And then his heyre's, O harsh inversion
If he had lost them first, it might be thought
His kingdomes losse would not have mov'd him ought
He would have made the best of th'other crosse
Esteeming it an easing, not a losse.
As he might now to be depriv'd of sight
When he should covet the kind screene of Night,
Betweene his woes and him: if in his mind
He saw, it was a blessing to be blind:
That then he should be forc't to see no more
When he could not see what he saw before,
This Israel suffer'd, and this Ashur did,
And yet I dare affirme it was not hid
No not from Ashur ev'n in his owne doome
That they were better who were overcome,
Or if the goodnesse to his side he drawes,
'Tis that his sword was better, not his cause
58
Actions betweene the Heathen and the Iew,
Betweene the Turke and Christian: but what need
To shew there is no birth without a seed?
No speech without a tongue? or if there be
More truths of such knowne perspicuity.
| Poems by Robert Gomersall | |