Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While ours, a world divided from the rest,
A dreadful quiet felt, and worser far
Than arms, a sullen interval of war.
Thus, when black clouds draw down the labouring skies, 5
Ere yet abroad the winged thunder flies,
An horrid stillness first invades the ear
And in that silence we the tempest fear.
The ambitious Swede like restless billows tost,
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
Though in his life he blood and ruin breathed,
To his now guideless kingdom peace bequeathed;
And Heaven, that seemed regardless of our fate,
For France and Spain did miracles create
Such mortal quarrels to compose in peace
As nature bred and interest did increase.
We sighed to hear the fair Iberian bride
Must grow a lily to the Lily's side;
While our cross stars denied us Charles his bed
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed.
For his long absence Church and State did groan;
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne.
Experienced age in deep despair was lost
To see the rebel thrive, the loyal crost:
Youth that with joys had unacquainted been
Envied gray hairs that once good days had seen:
We thought our sires, not with their own content,
Had, ere we came to age, our portion spent.
Nor could our nobles hope their bold attempt
Who ruined crowns would coronets exempt:
For when, by their designing leaders taught
To strike at power which for themselves they sought,
The vulgar, gulled into rebellion, armed,
Their blood to action by the prize was warmed;
The sacred purple then and scarlet gown,
Like sanguine dye to elephants, was shown.
Thus, when the bold Typhoeus scaled the sky
And forced great Jove from his own heaven to fly,
(What king, what crown from treason's reach is free, If Jove and heaven can violated be?)
The lesser gods that shared his prosperous state
All suffered in the exiled Thunderer's fate.
The rabble now such freedom did enjoy
As winds at sea that use it to destroy:
Blind as the Cyclops and as wild as he,
They owned a lawless savage liberty,
Like that our painted ancestors so prized,
Ere empire's arts their breasts had civilized.
How great were then our Charles his woes who thus
Was forced to suffer for himself and us!
He, tossed by fate and hurried up and down,
Heir to his father's sorrows with his crown,
Could taste no sweets of youth's desired age,
But found his life too true a pilgrimage.
Unconquered yet in that forlorn estate,
His manly courage overcame his fate.
His wounds he took, like Romans, on his breast,
Which by his virtue were with laurels drest.
As souls reach Heaven, while yet in bodies pent,
So did he live above his banishment.
That sun, which we beheld with cozened eyes
Within the water, moved along the skies.
How easy 'tis, when Destiny proves kind,
With full-spread sails to run before the wind!
But those that 'gainst stiff gales laveering go
Must be at once resolved and skilful too.
He would not, like soft Otho, hope prevent,
But stayed and suffered fortune to repent.
These virtues Galba in a stranger sought
And Piso to adopted empire brought.
How shall I then my doubtful thoughts express
That must his sufferings both regret and bless?
For when his early valour Heaven had crost,
And all at Worcester but the honour lost,
Forced into exile from his rightful throne,
He made all countries where he came his own,
And, viewing monarchs' secret arts of sway,
A royal factor for their kingdoms lay.
Thus banished David spent abroad his time,
When to be God's anointed was his crime,
And, when restored, made his proud neighbours rue
Those choice remarks he from his travels drew.
Nor is he only by afflictions shown
To conquer others' realms, but rule his own;
Recovering hardly what he lost before,
His right endears it much, his purchase more.
Inured to suffer ere he came to reign,
No rash procedure will his actions stain.
To business ripened by digestive thought,
His future rule is into method brought,
As they who first proportion understand
With easy practice reach a master's hand.
Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honoured name of Counseller;
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.
In such adversities to sceptres trained,
The name of Great his famous grandsire gained:
Who, yet a king alone in name and right,
With hunger, cold, and angry Jove did fight;
Shocked by a covenanting League's vast powers,
As holy and as Catholic as ours:
Till Fortune's fruitless spite had made it known
Her blows not shook but riveted his throne.
Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,
No action leave to busy chronicles:
Such, whose supine felicity but makes
In story chasms, in epoches mistakes,
O'er whom Time gently shakes his wings of down
Till with his silent sickle they are mown.
Such is not Charles his too too active age,
Which, governed by the wild distempered rage
Of some black star infecting all the skies,
Made him at his own cost, like Adam, wise.
Tremble, ye nations who, secure before,
Laughed at those arms that 'gainst our selves we bore;
Roused by the lash of his own stubborn tail,
Our Lion now will foreign foes assail.
With alga who the sacred altar strows?
To all the sea-gods Charles an offering owes,
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain,
A lamb to you the tempests of the main.
For those loud storms that did against him roar
Have cast his shipwracked vessel on the shore.
Yet, as wise artists mix their colours so
That by degrees they from each other go,
Black steals unheeded from the neighbouring white
Without offending the well-cozened sight,
So on us stole our blessed change, while we
The effect did feel but scarce the manner see.
Frosts that constrain the ground and birth deny
To flowers that in its womb expecting lie
Do seldom their usurping power withdraw,
But raging floods pursue their hasty thaw :
Our thaw was mild, the cold not chased away,
But lost in kindly heat of lengthened day.
Heaven would no bargain for its blessings drive,
But what we could not pay for freely give.
The Prince of Peace would, like himself, confer
A gift unhoped without the price of war:
Yet, as He knew His blessing's worth, took care
That we should know it by repeated prayer,
Which stormed the skies and ravished Charles from thence, As Heaven it self is took by violence.
Booth's forward valour only served to show
He durst that duty pay we all did owe;
The attempt was fair, but Heaven's prefixed hour
Not come so, like the watchful travellour
That by the moon's mistaken light did rise,
Lay down again and closed his weary eyes.
'Twas Monk, whom Providence designed to loose
Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints that watched this turning scene
Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean
To see small clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk but in their order strong.
Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue
As Fancy frames for Fancy to subdue;
But when ourselves to action we betake,
It shuns the mint, like gold that chymists make.
How hard was then his task, at once to be
What in the body natural we see
Man's architect distinctly did ordain
The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense,
The springs of motion from the seat of sense.
'Twas not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripened fruit of wise delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play a while upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude:
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.
Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear
To scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear,
And guard with caution that polluted nest
Whence Legion twice before was dispossest:
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