Certaine Serious Thoughts which at severall times & upon sundry Occasions have stollen themselves into Verse and now into the Publike View from the Author: Together w[i]th a Chronologicall table denoeting the names of such Princes as ruled the neighbor States and were con-temporary to our English Kings, observeing throughout ye number of yeares w[hi]ch every one of them reigned [by Christopher Wyvill] |
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Feb. 8. 1642.
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 | Certaine Serious Thoughts |  |
Feb. 8. 1642.
Tis not base trembling, cowardize and feareThat mak's me in this fighting age, forbeare
To draw my sword: but seem an uselesse thing
Perhaps, whil'st others by adventuring
Gaine glorious titles; for my Countries good
My steps would fearlesse march in Seas of bloud,
And welcome certaine ruine: yet I finde
A war within my selfe, and stay behind.
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To Charles his head; God grant him all his own:
And may as long-liv'd curses fall upon
Their heads who honour not his Princely Son,
So from my heart I wish: and yet suspect
Many unsound will sound that Dialect:
The form-obtrudors may deform and make
Eneruous (whilst the Church of Rome doth take
Advantage, and supplant Religion)
Il'e not thrust in my hand to help them on.
Whose heart can lesse then bleed, whose head can be
Lesse then a spring of teares, when his eyes see
Distemper'd Zion, in this wofull plight,
Her sun with-drawn, inveloped with night?
My willing Muse, so she were unperplext,
Could wish to sing her Nunc-Dimittis next.
Ho! all that love her, all that passe this way,
Contribute here your sighs, sit down to pray
And mourn, till God, all other hopes are vaine,
Make up the breaches of his Church again.
Amen, So be it.
Lord say Amen, let it be so, that we
The beauty of thine holinesse may see
Unum hoc, a te Domine, expetivi, usquè immo & usq:
Idem expetam : sacro-sanctæ nempe ut ædis
Tuæ incola, populi tui lætitiâ fruar,
Psallentiq; Israeli comes adjungar
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Si fractus elabatur Orbis Impavidam ferient ruinæ:
Though all the Elements, like us, should jar
And wrap up ruin'd Nature by the war,
Though the worn Fabrick of the sphears above
Should, in disjoynted fragments, downward move,
And horrid Catarackts should headlong come
With swift descent, to make the world one tombe,
Yet should my feareless soule hope to espie,
A place of safety in my Saviour's eye.
And wrap up ruin'd Nature by the war,
Though the worn Fabrick of the sphears above
Should, in disjoynted fragments, downward move,
And horrid Catarackts should headlong come
With swift descent, to make the world one tombe,
Yet should my feareless soule hope to espie,
A place of safety in my Saviour's eye.
That skilfull chymist's never-failing art,
Can good, extracted out of ill, impart,
And ev'n by her distresses rear a frame,
That Zions re-built glory may proclaime;
Which, if my longing eyes but live to see,
'Tis Lord that one thing which I beg of thee.
Can good, extracted out of ill, impart,
And ev'n by her distresses rear a frame,
That Zions re-built glory may proclaime;
Which, if my longing eyes but live to see,
'Tis Lord that one thing which I beg of thee.
| Certaine Serious Thoughts | |