A Mirror of Faith :: :: University of Virginia Library

God bless King Charles! They're moving down!
The Castle Hill is gay
With gleaming helms and waving plumes,
and chivalrous array:
There is the Royal Standard!
and midmost in the ring
Of noblemen and gentlemen
that fence it, rides the King:

103

It bears a golden diadem,
all in a field of blue:
And for its legend ye may read
“Let Cæsar have his due!”
Hark to the war-horse' measured tread!
the very houses shake!
They thunder from the Castle heights
with falconet and drake!
S. Mary's bells are pealing now
a merry welcome out;
And drums strike up, and trumpets bray
and thousand voices shout:
Aye! raise the cry of joy again!
and tell it out afar,
The Lion is aroused at length!
King Charles goes out to war!

The bloody crew of Westminster!
Woe! Woe! to them to day!
They've play'd their game, and play'd it out:
the reckoning is to pay!

104

There's Strafford's murder cries for blood;
Oh God of Vengeance, when?
The good Archbishop's dungeon,
and Montague and Wren:
Altars defiled, and Church reviled,
and Holy Bishops chas'd,
And faithful pastors driv'n to die
on mountain, or in waste!
The end is nigh! the knell is rung,
of such as play their part
With God's Great Name upon their lips,
and the devil in their heart.
England is up! her sword is grasp'd!
her battle-bow is bent!
Call all! call all! both gentlemen
and yeomen, north of Trent!

The drums and trumpets sound more near;
room for the Life-guards! room!
God bless King Charles! he's passing now,
you know him by his plume!

105

There's the Lord Marshal by his side!
there's Uvedale on before!
There's Falkland and Southampton,
and six hundred heroes more!
And look how ladies wave the scarf,
and strong men bow the knee,
As, clattering through the city streets,
goes England's Chivalry!
And old men raise their eyes to Heav'n,
and maidens roses fling,
And children clap their little hands,
and cry, God save the King!
It is a nation's love that speaks!
'Twere worth a pound of gold,
That the Vanes, and Pym, and Manchester,
and Lenthall might behold!

Who says the clouds are stormy,
and the sky a fiery red?
Who says the winds are moaning,
as if wailing future dead?
Is not the Church upon our side,
and can we fail to win?
Doth She not bless our going out,
And hail our coming in?

106

Let men, and fiends, and all the powers
of darkness do their worst,
Yet whom She blesseth, he is blest,
and whom She curseth, curst.
And have we not a champion band
to plead for us on high?
Martyrs, and Confessors, and Saints,
A Blessed Company?
What if e'en now, to aid our cause,
angelic legions wait,
Girt with celestial armour,
round Heav'n's eternal gate?
What if e'en now, amid the blast,
their pinions' rush we hear,
And their fleet chariots to our aid
adown the gale career?
Who talks of Rebel-levies?
their prowess we contemn:
They be far more that side with us,
Than they that fight for them!

They've passed the gate; they're on the green,
they're winding up the hill;
The Standard's in the Marshal's hands,
the army hold them still:

107

“God be my guardian, as I make
the Church's cause mine own!
As o'er Her holy side my shield,
So His o'er me be thrown!
I fight for merry England's sake,
her Altars and her laws:
O God of Hosts! the strife is Thine,
not ours! Plead Thou my Cause!
And let them drain the very lees
of faction's bitter cup,
Who made me raise this Standard!
Earl-Marshal! set it up!”

It writhes and flutters in the breeze;
you scarce could tell its form:
Now God be with the Banner!
it is a fearful storm!
It struggles like a living thing!
the rude wind raging round
Rustles and riots through its folds,
and yet it stands its ground!
It shudders like an aspen-leaf,
as the gale comes fiercer on!
It standeth yet! it yieldeth not!
It quivers! it is gone!

108

Well, be the omen as it may!
If these our arms must fail,
The cause we love, the Church's cause,
shall evermore prevail;
Tho' all that host be swept away,
as the wind sweeps Ocean's surf,
Their narrow homes upon the heath,
their couch a bed of turf,
They lov'd their Church beyond their life,

109

Their future is not dim!
Oh! shed no tear for him that falls!
Oh! mourn ye not for him!
His name is marked by hands above
in Glory's brightest ray;
Writ with the things and men of old,
that cannot pass away:

110

But weep for him that fails his Church,
in this Her hour of need:
Weep ye for him that loseth Her,—
for he is lost indeed!
For them that fight Her battles now,
God's Grace be o'er them shed!
For them that stand to block Her path,
their blood be on their head!

Bishop Montague, of Norwich, suffered from the intolerable presumption of the Commons as early as the end of King James the First's reign, and he was persecuted by them, more or less, till his death. Bishop Wren of Ely was imprisoned in the Tower during the whole of the Civil War. He fortunately survived the Restoration.

Called to this day Standard Hill.

The following lines endeavour, however feebly, to express the feelings of those great and good men who drew their swords for the Church and the King:—

K. Charles:
Never was Prince, that less than I fear death,
Should dread his coming:—speak I not the truth?
For I have far more friends in Heav'n than here;
Nor ever Prince be less in love with life;
For all those friends laid down their lives for me!

Hyde:
Your Majesty, methinks, doth too much dwell
On the sad thought—They died; and not enough,
Or on the joy with which they gave their lives,
Or on the cause for which they laid them down,
Or on the good seed which their blood hath sown.
True, 'tis a mournful thought, that to them now
Our victories bring no joy, no woe our griefs:
But this were sadder, oh how much, if they
Who bled for us, should e'er, by our default,
Have bled in vain! So ardently they long'd
For that great jewel, an unfettered Church,
That all good else seem'd nothing in the scale;
Wherefore, because they could not give aught more,
They gave their lives. And 'tis our truest love
Not to lament a death which must have come
Sometime, and never could have come so bright,
As to press on the self-same path they trod;
While on our happier hours their thoughts desc end
Sadly, but sweetly, as the red leaf falls
On the fresh flower beneath it. When again
The merry wine-cup circles through Whitehall,
Then shall they still be present, in our hearts,
Who lie far off in moor and battle-height,
While the wind sings their requiem! 'Tis in truth
A lovely custom, that, on All Souls' Eve,
When the bright circle closes round the fire,
Leaves for the absent and departed ones
The very seats it was their wont to fill;
A lovely and a true one: for I deem
'Tis but the shadowing forth of that most sweet,
Yet most mysterious intercommuning,
That, at some certain seasons, links the soul
In closer union with departed friends.
We cannot stir without them: thoughts of them
Do haunt us like sweet strains; the very air
Breathes of their presence: where we go they come;
Are with us in the forest solitude,
Or full assembly; breathing pleasant thoughts
Of joys that we have known with them on earth,
Of joys that we shall know with them in Heav'n.