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2

First, The Complaint of the abused most ridiculous Round-heads.

Come, brethren, let's deplore our wofull state,
Since all we have done is almost undone:
Our paines and charges both betimes and late
Is like the battry of an Elder Gun;
We back againe unto our trade must fall,
Nor shall we be allow'd to preach at all.
And we from Sylla to Charybdis cast,
And from Charybdis back to Sylla hurld,
From wrong to injurie, from griefe that's past
To woe that's present, we rub through the world,
'Twixt Hawke and Buzzard, we seeme Planet-struck,
'Midst Chance and Fate, bad Fortune and ill Luck.
'Tis manifest that we have done our best,
To bring all wit and learning in disgrace;
The Church and Church-men we do still molest,
In hope we each might have a Preachers place:
Our zeale hath still the House of Prayer deni'd,
And many a Barne and Stable sanctifi'd.
What have we not done? we have rav'd and rail'd,
Vnrail'd, revil'd, exclaim'd, and made a noyse,
Brake windowes downe, left nothing unassail'd,
And wanting men (to clamour) borrowed boyes:
We have most stoutly play'd the beasts like men,
In hope to be all benefic'd, (But when?)
3

'Tis said, that they which China dishes make,
Doe burie them in the earth an hundred yeares:
Their Makers being dead, their Heires doe take
Those dishes from the earth, and all our feares
Is, that doe what we can with works and wishes,
Our labours will be like to China dishes.
For now againe the wicked 'gin to rise,
And call us Round-heads, and such scurvie names,
And do our pure profession scandalize
With Libels, Pamphlets, and most true exclaimes:
So that we gape like pining Tantalus,
For all we have done is worth scant a Lowse.
previous section Works of John Taylor the Water Poet not included in the folio volume of 1630
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