Clarastella Together with Poems occasional, Elegies, Epigrams, Satyrs. By Robert Heath |
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On the Creeple souldiers marching in
Oxford in the Lord Thr. Cottington's Companie.
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 | Clarastella |  |
On the Creeple souldiers marching in Oxford in the Lord Thr. Cottington's Companie.
Stay Gentlemen! and you shal see a very rare sight;
Souldiers who though they want arms, yet wil fight:
Nay some of them have never a leg but onely Will:
Their Governour, and yet they'l stand to it stil.
The birds call'd Apodes they resemble, and seem
To be without either wing or leg, like them.
Oh the courage of a drunken and valiant man!
For each wil be going when he cannot stand!
Then room for Criples! here comes a companie,
Such as before I think you ne'r did see:
Here's one like a Pidgion goes pinion'd in spight
Of old Priapus, the birds to affright:
Another limps as if he had got the Pharse,
With his half leg like a Goose close up to his arse.
Yet mistake me not! this is no Puppet play;
You shal onely see the several motions to day.
Ran: tan: tan: with a spanish march and gate
Thus they follow their Leader according to his wonted state.
A Snaile or a Crablouse would march in a day.
If driven as led with the white staffe as far as they,
What I should cal them I hardly do know,
Foot they are not as appears by the show:
By the wearing of their Musquets to which they are ty'd,
They should be Dragooners had they horses to ride.
And yet now I think on't, they cannot be suc;
Because each man hath his rest for his crutch,
To these their Officer need not to say at alar'ms,
Stand to your Colours, or handle your arms:
Yet that they are Souldiours, you safely may say,
For they'l die before they wil run away:
Nay, they are stout as ever were Vantrumps,
For like Widdrington they'l fight upon their very stumps.
They have keen Estridge stomacks, and wel disgest
Both Iron and Lead, as a Dog wil a breast
Of Mutton. But now to their Pedigree;
That they are sons of Mars, most writers agree;
Some conceive from the Badger old Vulcan they came,
Because like him they are Mettle-men and lame,
The moderns think they came from the Guyes of Warwick; and
Some think they are of the old Herculean band:
For as by his foot he was discover'd, so
By their feet you their valour may know.
And though many wear wooden legs and crutches,
Yet, by Hercules, I can assure you, such is
Their steeled resolution, that here
You'l find none that wil the woodden dagger wear.
They're true and trustie Trojans all believe me,
And stride their wooden Palfreis well: t'would grieve me
To see them tire before they get
Unto the Holy-bush; but yet
If they should faint, at that end of the town,
They may set up their horses and lie down.
Most of these fighters, I would have you to know,
Were our brave Edgehil Mermidons awhile agoe.
Who were their limbs like their looser rags
Ready to leave them at the next hedge, with brags,
That through the merit of their former harms,
They die like Gentlemen though they bear no arms.
Souldiers who though they want arms, yet wil fight:
Nay some of them have never a leg but onely Will:
Their Governour, and yet they'l stand to it stil.
The birds call'd Apodes they resemble, and seem
To be without either wing or leg, like them.
Oh the courage of a drunken and valiant man!
For each wil be going when he cannot stand!
Then room for Criples! here comes a companie,
Such as before I think you ne'r did see:
Here's one like a Pidgion goes pinion'd in spight
Of old Priapus, the birds to affright:
Another limps as if he had got the Pharse,
With his half leg like a Goose close up to his arse.
Yet mistake me not! this is no Puppet play;
You shal onely see the several motions to day.
Ran: tan: tan: with a spanish march and gate
Thus they follow their Leader according to his wonted state.
A Snaile or a Crablouse would march in a day.
If driven as led with the white staffe as far as they,
What I should cal them I hardly do know,
Foot they are not as appears by the show:
By the wearing of their Musquets to which they are ty'd,
They should be Dragooners had they horses to ride.
And yet now I think on't, they cannot be suc;
Because each man hath his rest for his crutch,
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Stand to your Colours, or handle your arms:
Yet that they are Souldiours, you safely may say,
For they'l die before they wil run away:
Nay, they are stout as ever were Vantrumps,
For like Widdrington they'l fight upon their very stumps.
They have keen Estridge stomacks, and wel disgest
Both Iron and Lead, as a Dog wil a breast
Of Mutton. But now to their Pedigree;
That they are sons of Mars, most writers agree;
Some conceive from the Badger old Vulcan they came,
Because like him they are Mettle-men and lame,
The moderns think they came from the Guyes of Warwick; and
Some think they are of the old Herculean band:
For as by his foot he was discover'd, so
By their feet you their valour may know.
And though many wear wooden legs and crutches,
Yet, by Hercules, I can assure you, such is
Their steeled resolution, that here
You'l find none that wil the woodden dagger wear.
They're true and trustie Trojans all believe me,
And stride their wooden Palfreis well: t'would grieve me
To see them tire before they get
Unto the Holy-bush; but yet
If they should faint, at that end of the town,
They may set up their horses and lie down.
Most of these fighters, I would have you to know,
Were our brave Edgehil Mermidons awhile agoe.
Who were their limbs like their looser rags
Ready to leave them at the next hedge, with brags,
That through the merit of their former harms,
They die like Gentlemen though they bear no arms.
Now some wil suspect that my Muse may be,
'Cause she is so lame, of this Companie:
And the rather, because one verse sometimes,
Is much shorter then his fellows to hold up the rithmes;
I confess before Criples to halt is not good:
Yet for excuse shee pleads, she understood
That things by their similies are best displaid,
And for that cause her feet are now Iambick made.
'Cause she is so lame, of this Companie:
And the rather, because one verse sometimes,
Is much shorter then his fellows to hold up the rithmes;
I confess before Criples to halt is not good:
Yet for excuse shee pleads, she understood
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And for that cause her feet are now Iambick made.
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