ODE.
Written soon after O. Cromwel's Death.
1
Curst be the Man! (what do I wish? as tho
The Wretch already were not so)
But curst on let him be, who thinks it brave
And great, his Country to enslave;
Who seeks to overpoise alone
The Ballance of a Nation,
Against the whole but naked State;
Who in his own light Scale makes up with Arms the Weight.
2
Who of his Nation loves to be the first,
Tho at the rate of being worst:
Who wou'd be rather a great Monster, than
A well-proportion'd Man:
The Son of Earth with hundred Hands
Upon his three-pil'd Mountain stands,
Till Thunder strikes him from the Sky;
The Son of Earth again in his Earth's Womb does lie.
3
What Blood, Confusion, Ruin to obtain
A short and miserable Reign?
In what oblique and humble creeping wise
Does the mischievous Serpent rise?
But ev'n his forked Tongue strikes dead,
When he has rear'd up his wicked Head:
He murders with his mortal Frown,
A Basilisk he grows, if once he gets a Crown.
4
But no Guards can oppose assaulting Ears,
Or undermining Tears:
No more than Doors, or close-drawn Curtains keep
The swarming Dreams out when we sleep.
That bloody Conscience too of his,
(For O! a Rebel-Redcoat 'tis)
Does here his early Hell begin:
He sees his Slaves without, his Tyrant feels within.
5
Let gracious God, let never more thy Hand
Lift up this Rod against our Land:
A Tyrant is a Rod and Serpent too,
And brings worse Plagues than Egypt knew.
What Rivers stain'd with Blood have been?
What Storm and Hailshot have we seen?
What Sores deform'd th'ulcerous State?
What Darkness to be felt has bury'd us of late?
6
How has it snatch'd our Flocks and Herds away,
And even made our Sons a Prey?
What croaking Sects and Vermin has it sent
The restless Nation to torment?
What greedy Troops, what armed Pow'r
Of Flies and Locusts, to devour
The Land, which ev'ry where they fill?
Nor fly they, Lord, away: no, they devour it still.
7
Come th'eleventh Plague rather than this should be:
Come sink us rather in the Sea:
Come rather Pestilence, and reap us down;
Come God's Sword rather than our own:
Let rather Roman come again,
Or Saxon, Norman, or the Dane:
In all the Bonds we ever bore,
We griev'd, we sigh'd, we wept; we never blush'd before.
8
If by our Sins the Divine Justice be
Call'd to this last Extremity,
Let some denouncing Jonas first be sent,
To try if England can repent.
Methinks, at least, some Prodigy,
Some dreadful Comet from on high,
Should terribly forewarn the Earth,
As of good Princes Deaths, so of a Tyrant's Birth.
