Ex otio Negotium :: :: University of Virginia Library

To speak in wet-shod eyes, and drowned looks,
Sad broken accents, and a vein that brooks
No spirit, life, or vigour, were to own
The crush and tryumph of affliction;
And creeping with Themistocles to bee
The pale-faced pensioners of our enemie.
No, 'tis the glory of the soul to rise
By fals, and at re-bound to peirce the skies.

Like a brave Courser standing on the sand
Of some high-working Fretum, views a land

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Smiling with sweets upon the distant side,
Garnish'd in all her gay imbroidred pride, woods,
Larded with springs, and fring'd with curled
Impatient, bounces, in the capring flouds,
Big with a nobler fury than that stream
Of shallow violence he meets in them;
Thence arm'd with scorn & courage ploughs a way
Through the impostum'd billows of the Sea;
And makes the grumbling surges slaves to oar
And wast him safely to the further shoar:
Where landed, in a soveraign disdain
He turns back, and surveys the foaming main,
Whiles the subjected waters flowing reel
Ambitious yet to wash the victor's heel.

In such a noble equipage should wee
Embrace th'encounter of our miserie.
Not like a field of corn, that hangs the head
For every tempest, every petty dread.
Crosses were the best Christians armes: and wee
That hope a wished Canaan once to see
Must not expect a carpet way alone
Without a red-sea of affliction.

Then cast the dice: Let's foord old Rubicon,
Cæsar 'tis thine, man is but once undone.
Tread softly though, least Scylla's ghost awake,
And us in the roll of his Proscriptions take.
Rome is revived, and the Triumvirate
In the black Island are once more a state;
The Citty trembles: Theres no third to shield
If once Augustus to Antonius yield

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Law shall not shelter Cicero, the robe
The Senate: Proud success admits no probe
Of Justice to correct or quare the fate
That bears down all as illegitimate;
For whatsoere it lists to over-throw,
It either findes it, or else makes it so.

Thus Tyranny's a stately Palace, where
Ambition sweats to climbe and nustle there;
But when 'tis enterd, what hopes then remain?
There is no salliport to come out again.
For mischief must rowl on, and gliding grow
Like little rivulets that gently flow
From their first bubling springs, but still increase
And swell their channel as they mend their pace;
Till in a glorious tide of villany
They over-run the bancks, and posting fly
Like th'bellowing waves in tumults, till they can
Display themselves in a full Ocean.
And if blinde rage shall chance to miss its way
Brings stock enough alone to make a Sea.

Thus treble treasons are secur'd & drownd
By lowder crimes of deeper mouth and sound.
And high attempts swallow a puny plot
As Canons over-whelme the smaler shot.
Whiles the deaf senseless world inur'd a while
(Like the Catadupi at the fall of Nile)
To the feirce tumbling wonder, think it none
Thus custom hallows irreligion.
And stroaks the patient beast till he admit
The now-grown-light and necessary Bitt.

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But whether doe I ramble? Gauled times
Cannot endure a smart hand ore their crimes.
Distracted age? What dialect or fashion
Shall I assume? To passe the approbation
Of thy censorious Synod; which now sit
High Areopagites to destroy all wit?

I cannot say I say that I am one
Of th'Church of Ely-house, or Abington,
Nor of those pretious spirits that can deal
The pomgranets of grace at every meal.
No zealous Hemp-dresser yet dipp'd me in
The Laver of adoption from my sin.
But yet if inspiration, or a tale
Of a long-wasted six hours length prevail,
A smooth certificate from the sister-hood,
Or to be termed holy before good,
Religious malice, or a faith 'thout works
Other then may proclaim us Jews or Turks.
If these, these hint at any thing? Then, then
Whoop my dispairing Hope come back agen.
For since the inundation of grace,
All honesty's under water, or in chase.
But 'tis the old worlds dot age, thereupon
We feed on dreams, imagination,
Humours, and cross-graind passions which now reign
In the decaying elements of the brain.
Tis hard to coin new fancies, when there bee
So few that launch out in discoverie.
Nay Arts are so far from being cherished,
There's scarce a Colledg but has lost its Head,

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And almost all its Members: O sad wound!
Where never an Arterie could be judged sound!
To what a hight is Vice now towred? When we
Dare not miscall it an Obliquitie?
So confident, and carrying such an awe,
That is subscribes it self no less than Law?
If this be reformation then? The great
Account pursued with so much bloud & sweat?

In what black lines shall our sad story bee
Deliver'd over to posteritie?
With what a dash and scar shall we be read?
How has Dame Nature in us suffered?
Who of all Centuries the first age are
That sunck the World for want of due repair?

When first we issued out in cries and tears,
(Those salt presages of our future years)
Head-long we dropt into a quiet calme,
Times crownd with rosie garlands, spice and balme;
Where first a glorious Church & mother came,
Embrac'd us in her armes, gave us a name
By which we live, and an indulgent brest
Flowing with stream to an eternal rest.
Thus ravish'd the poor Soul could not ghuesse even
Which was more kinde to her yet, earth, or heaven.
Or rather wrapp'd in a pious doubt
Of heaven, whether she were in or out.

Next the Great Father of our Countrey brings
His blessing too, (even the Best of Kings)

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Safe and well grownded Lawes to guard our peace,
And nurse our vertues in their just increase;
Like a pure spring from whom all graces come,
Whose bounty made it double Christendom.
Such and so sweet were those Halcyon Dayes
That rose upon us in our Infant rayes;
Such a composed State we breathed under,
We only heard of Jove, nere felt his thunder.
Terrours were then as strange, as love now grown,
Wrong and revenge lived quietly at home.
The sole contention that we understood
Was a rare strife and war in doing good.

Now let's reflect upon our gratfulness,
How we have added, or (ô) made it less,
What are th'improvements? what our progresse, where
Those handsom acts that say that some men were?
He that to antient wreaths can bring no more
From his own worth, dyes banq'rupt, on the score.
For Father's Crests are crowned in the Son,
And glory spreads by propagation.
Now vertue shield me! where shall I begin?
To what a labyrinth am I now slipp'd in?
What shall we answer them? or what deny?
What prove? Or rather whether shall we fly?
When the poor widdow'd Church shall ask us where
Are all her honours? & that filial care

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We owed so sweet a Parent as the Spouse
Of Christ, which here vouchsafed to own a house?
Where are her Boanerges? & those rare
Brave sons of consolation? Which did bear
The Ark before our Israel, and dispence
The heavenly Manna with such diligence?
In them the prim'tive Motto's come to passe,
Aut mortui sunt, aut docent literas.
Bless'd Virgin we can only say we have
Thy Prophets Tombes among us, and their grave.
And here and there a man in colours paint
That by thy ruines grew a mighty Saint.

Next Cæsar some accounts are due to thee,
But those in bloud already written bee.
So lowd & lasting, in such monstruous shapes,
So wide the never to be clos'd wound gapes;
All ages yet to come with shivering shall
Recite the fearful pres'dent of thy fall.

Hence we confute thy tenent Solomon,
Under the Sun a new thing hath been done,
A thing before all pattern, all pretence
Of rule or coppy: Such a strange offence,
Of such original extract, that it bears
Date only from the Eden of our years.

Laconian Agis! we have read thy fate,
The violence of the Spartan love and hate.
How Pagans trembled at the thought of thee,
And fled the horror of thy tragedie.
Thyestes cruel feast, and how the Sun
Shrunk in his golden beams that sight to shun.

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The bosoms of all Kingdoms open lye,
Plain and emergent to th'inquiring eye.
But when we glance upon our native home,
As the black Center to whom all points come,
We rest amazed, and silently admire
How far beyond all spleen ours did aspire.
All that we dare assert is but a cry
Of an exchanged peace for Liberty.
A secret term by inspiration known,
A mist that brooks no demonstration,
Unless we dive into our purses, where
We quickly finde Our Freedom purely dear.

But why exclaim you thus? may some men say,
Against the times? when equal night and day
Keep their just course? the seasons still ye same?
As sweet as when from the first hand they came?
The influence of the Stars benigne and free,
As at first Peep up in their infancie?
Tis not those standing motions that devide
The space of years, nor the swift hours yt glide
Those little particles of age, that come
In thronging Items that make up the Summ,
That's here intended: But our crying crimes,
Our monsters that abominate the times.
Tis we that make the Metonymie good
By being bad. Which like a troubled floud
Nothing produce but slimy mire and dirt,
And impudence that makes shame malepert.

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To travel further in these wounds that lye
Rankling, though seeming closed, were to deny
Rest to an ore-watch'd world, and force fresh tears
From stench'd eyes, new alarum'd by old fears.
Which if they thus shall heal & stop, they bee
The first that ere were cur'd by Lethargie.
This only Axiom from ill Times increase
I gather, There's a time to hold ones peace.