University of Virginia Library

Cleveland's Poems Digested in Order.

SECT. II. Containing Poems which relate to State-Affairs.

Upon The King's Return from Scotland.

Return'd; I'l ne'r believ't; first prove him hence,
Kings travel by their Beams and Influence.
Who says the Soul gives out her Gests, or goes
A flitting Progress 'twixt the Head and Toes?
She rules by Omnipresence; and shall we
Deny a Prince the same Ubiquity?
Or grant he went, and 'cause the knot was slack
Girt both the Nations with his Zodiack;
Yet as the Tree at once both upward shoots,
And just as much grows downward to the Roots;
So at the same time that he posted thither
By Counter-Stages he rebounded hither.
Hither, and hence at once; thus every Sphere
Doth by a double motion interfere,
And when his Native form inclines him East.
By the first Mover he is ravish'd West:
Have you not seen how the divided Dam
Runs to the summons of her hungry Lamb;
But when the Twin cries halves, she quits the first,
Nature's Commendum must be likewise nurst?
So were his Journeys like the Spider spun
Out of his Bowels of Compassion.
Two Realms, like Cacus, so his steps transpose,
His feet still contradict him as he goes.
England's return'd, that was a banish'd Soil,
The Bullet flying makes the Gun recoil.
Death's but a Separation, though indors'd
With Spade and Javelin, we were thus divorc'd.
Our Soul hath taken wing, while we express
The Corps returning to their Principles.
But the Crab-Tropick must not now prevail,
Islands go back, but when you're under sail:
So his Retreat hath rectified that wrong;
Backward is forward in the Hebrew Tongue.
Now the Church Militant in plenty rests,
Nor fears, like th' Amazon, to lose her Breasts.
Her means are safe, not squeez'd, until the blood
Mix with the Milk, and choak the tender Brood.
She that hath been the floating Ark, is that
She, that's now seated on Mount Ararat.
Quits Charles; our Souls did guard him Northward thus,
Now he the Counterpart comes South to us.

The General Eclipse.

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The attribution of this poem is questionable.