 | The Covragiovs Tvrke, or, Amvrath the First |  |
Scæna 2.
Enter Lazarus, Cobelitz, Souldiers, all armed.Cob.
Let now victorious wreathes ingirt our browes,
Let Angels 'stead of Souldiers wield our armes,
'Gainst him, who that our Citties might be his
Strives to depopulate, and make them none!
But looke, looke in the ayre (me thinks) I see
An host of Souldiers brandishing their swords;
Each corner of the Heaven shoots thunderbolts,
To naile these impious forces to the Earth.
Laz.
Souldiers stand to't! though fortune bandy at's
Let's stand her shockes, like sturdy Rockes ith' Sea.
On which the angry foaming Billowes beat,
With frivolous rush: and breake themselves, not them;
Stand like the undainted countenance oth' sky,
Or, like the Sunne, which when the foolish King,
Thought to obscure with a Cloud of Darts,
Out lookt them all, our lives are all inchanted,
And more invulnerate than Thetis sonne.
We shall have hands and weapons, if the stone,
Of fortune glide from under our weake feet,
And we must fall: yet, let all Christians say,
'Tis she, and not the cause, that wins the day.
We must beleeve Heaven hath a greater care
Of them, whom fortune doth so oft out dare!
Cob.
Gentlemen, brothers, friends Souldiers, Christians,
We have no reason to command of Heaven
A thing denyed to all mortality.
Nor should we be so impudently proud,
As in this weake condition to repute
Our selves above the stroake of Lady Chance,
A caution must divine it ever fixt,
Community should ease their bitternesse.
I could afresh now shed those Princely teares
To thinke such suddaine raine should attend
Heroicke spirits glittering in bright armes!
But if the Grecian (when he heard the dreames
Disputed subtilly by Philosophers,
To prove innumerable extant worlds)
Was strucke with pensivenesse, and wept to thinke
He had not yet obtain'd one for himselfe;
What terror can affright a Christians thoughts
Who knowes there is a world, at liberty
To breath in, when this glasse of life is broke?
Our foes with circling furie are intrencht;
Pelions of earth and darknesse shall orelade them,
Whilst we shall mount, and these our spirits light,
Shall be yet ponderous to depresse them lower.
Nay, my Enthesiasticke soule divines,
That some weake hand shall from the blazing Zone
Snatch Lightning, which shall strike the snarling Cur
With horror and amazement to the Earth!
Which Hell cannot oppose! Turke, Tyrannize!
Stand, yet at length to fall my sacrifice.
Super-Olympicke vigor will (no doubt)
Squease all thy supercilious rancor out!
Exeunt in a March.
| The Covragiovs Tvrke, or, Amvrath the First | |