Poems on Affairs of State

And since Men wandring in a Wood by Night,
When they shall through a Glade behold some Light,
Take thereby Courage to walk chearly on,
In hope their Fears and Toils are nearly gone;
I'll from a Cloud flash out a little Gleam
Of Lightning, and disclose a little Beam,
Whereby on you a Glimmering shall be cast
Of what you may attain to at the last.
For I will shew you by what Pedegree
That Government to you deriv'd shall be,
Which will at last the British Islands bless
With Inward Peace and Outward Happiness:
It was of late a brief Presage of his
Who oft hath Truth foretold, and it is this.

106

When here a Scot shall think his Throne to set
Above the Circle of a British King,
He shall a Dateless Parliament beget,
From whence a Dreadful Armed Brood shall spring.
This Offspring shall beget a wild Confusion;
Confusion shall an Anarchy beget,
That Anarchy shall bring forth in Conclusion
A Creature that you have no Name for yet.
This Creature shall conceive a sickly State,
Which will an Aristocracy produce:
The many-headed Beast, not liking that,
To raise Democracy shall rather choose.
And then Democracy's Production shall
A Moon-calf be, which some a Mole do call;
A false Conception of imperfect Nature,
And of a shapeless and a brutish Feature.
For these Descents shall live and reign together,
So acting for a while, that few should know
Which of them has the Sov'reignty, or whether
There be among them a Supreme or no.
When they with Jars and Janglings have defac'd
Your Triple Building, and themselves nigh worn
Into Contempt, they of one Cup shall tast,
And into their first Elements return.
Five of them shall subdue the other Five;
And then those Five shall, in a doubtful Strife,
Each others Death so happily contrive,
That they shall die to live a better Life;
And out of their Corruption rise there shall
A true Supreme, acknowledged by all:
In whom the Power of all the Five shall be,
With Unity, made visible in Three.

107

Prince, People, Parliament, with Priests and Peers,
Shall be a while your emulous Grandees,
Make a confused Pentarchy some Years,
And leave off their distinct Claims by degrees.
And then shall Righteousness ascend the Throne,
Then Truth and Love and Peace re-enter shall,
Then Faith and Reason shall agree in one,
And all the Virtues to their Council call.
And timely out of all these shall arise
That Kingdom and that happy Government,
Which is the Scope of all those Prophecies
That future Truths obscurely represent.
But how this done shall be, few Men shall see;
For wrought in Clouds and Darkness it will be:
And e'er it come to pass to publick View,
Most of these following Signs must first ensue.

A King shall willingly himself unking,
And thereby grow far greater than before,
The Priests their Priesthood to Contempt shall bring,
And Piety thereby shall thrive the more.
A Parliament it self shall overthrow,
And thereby shall a better Being gain.
The Peers, by setting of themselves below,
A more ennobling Honour shall obtain.
The People for a time shall be enslav'd;
But that shall make them for the future free,
By private Loss the Publick shall be sav'd.
An Army shall, by yielding, Victor be.
The Cities Wealth her Poverty shall cause.
The Laws Corruption shall reform the Laws.
And Bullocks of the largest Northern Breed
Shall fatted be where now scarce Sheep can feed.
You may perhaps deride what's here recited,
As heretofore you other Truths have slighted;
But some of my Presage you have beheld
Already in obscurity fulfill'd:
The rest shall in its time appointed come,
And sooner than will pleasing be to some.

108

The last nine Signs or Symptoms of the ten,
Which should precede them, shall appear to men
Of all Conditions; but our Author saith,
The first is but in Hope, not yet in Faith,
And may be, or not be; for so or so
That King shall have his Lot as he shall do.
If all his Sins he heartily repent,
God will remit e'en all his Punishment,
And him unto his Peoples Hearts restore,
With greater Honour than he had before.
If he remain impenitent like Saul,
God from the Throne shall cast both him and all
His whole Descent, and leave him not a Man
To fill it, though he had a Jonathan.
If Ahab-like his Mourning has respects
To temporary Losses or Effects,
Like Ahab then it therewithal shall carry
Some Benefit, which is but temporary.
A real Penitence, tho somewhat late,
The Rigor of his Doom may much abate,
By leaving him a part of what he had,
When he a Forfeiture of all hath made;
Or else by rooting out those who in Sin
With him have actually Partakers been;
And placing in their steads a Branch of his,
Whose Innocency no way question'd is.

K. Charles I.

The long Parliament.

The Army.

K. Charles's Death.

Ol. Cromwel L. Protector.

When Rich. Cromwel was deposed.

The Committee of Safety.

Government of King, Lords, and Commons.

K. Charles the Second.

University of Virginia Library

A Copy of Verses written in the Year 1623.

relating to many things that would happen to the Government of England.