 | The poems of John Wilmot: Earl of Rochester |  |
4
To Her Sacred Majesty the Queen Mother
Respite great Queen your just and hasty fears,
Ther's no infection lodges in our teares.
Though our unhappy aire be arm'd with death,
Yet sigh's have an untainted guiltlesse breath.
O! stay a while, and teach your equall skill
To understand and to support our ill.
You that in mighty wrongs an Age have spent,
And seem to have out-liv'd even bannishment:
Whom traiterous mischeif sought its earliest prey,
When unto sacred blood it made its way;
And thereby did its black designe impart,
To take his head, that wounded first his heart:
You that unmov'd great Charles his ruine stood,
When that three Nations sunk beneath the load:
Then a young Daughter lost, yet balsome found
To stanch that new and freshly bleeding wound:
And after this with fixt and steddy eyes
Beheld your noble Glocesters obsequies:
And then sustain'd the royall Princess fall;
You only can lament her Funerall.
Ther's no infection lodges in our teares.
Though our unhappy aire be arm'd with death,
Yet sigh's have an untainted guiltlesse breath.
O! stay a while, and teach your equall skill
To understand and to support our ill.
You that in mighty wrongs an Age have spent,
And seem to have out-liv'd even bannishment:
Whom traiterous mischeif sought its earliest prey,
When unto sacred blood it made its way;
And thereby did its black designe impart,
To take his head, that wounded first his heart:
You that unmov'd great Charles his ruine stood,
When that three Nations sunk beneath the load:
Then a young Daughter lost, yet balsome found
To stanch that new and freshly bleeding wound:
And after this with fixt and steddy eyes
Beheld your noble Glocesters obsequies:
And then sustain'd the royall Princess fall;
You only can lament her Funerall.
But you will hence remove, and leave behind
Our sad complaints lost in the empty wind;
Those winds that bid you stay, and loudly rore
Destruction, and drive back unto the Shore:
Shipwrack to safety, and the envy fly
Of sharing in this Scene of Tragedy:
Whilst sickness from whose rage you post away
Relents, and only now contrives your stay:
The lately fatall and infectious ill
Courts the fair Princesse and forgets to kill.
In vain on feavors curses we dispence,
And vent our passions angry eloquence:
In vain we blast the Ministers of Fate,
And the forlorne Physitians imprecate,
Say they to death new poisons adde and fire;
Murder securely for reward and hire;
Arts Basilicks, that kill whom ere they see,
And truly write bills of Mortality;
Who least the bleeding Corps should them betray,
First draine those vitall speaking streames away.
And will you by your flight take part with these?
Become your self a third and new disease?
If they have caus'd our losse, then so have you,
Who take your self and the fair Princesse too:
For we depriv'd, an equall damage have
When France doth ravish hence as when the grave.
But that your choice th'unkindness doth improve,
And dereliction adds unto remove.
Our sad complaints lost in the empty wind;
Those winds that bid you stay, and loudly rore
Destruction, and drive back unto the Shore:
Shipwrack to safety, and the envy fly
Of sharing in this Scene of Tragedy:
Whilst sickness from whose rage you post away
Relents, and only now contrives your stay:
The lately fatall and infectious ill
Courts the fair Princesse and forgets to kill.
In vain on feavors curses we dispence,
And vent our passions angry eloquence:
In vain we blast the Ministers of Fate,
And the forlorne Physitians imprecate,
5
Murder securely for reward and hire;
Arts Basilicks, that kill whom ere they see,
And truly write bills of Mortality;
Who least the bleeding Corps should them betray,
First draine those vitall speaking streames away.
And will you by your flight take part with these?
Become your self a third and new disease?
If they have caus'd our losse, then so have you,
Who take your self and the fair Princesse too:
For we depriv'd, an equall damage have
When France doth ravish hence as when the grave.
But that your choice th'unkindness doth improve,
And dereliction adds unto remove.
| The poems of John Wilmot: Earl of Rochester | |