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And all her jealous monarchs with amaze
And rumours loud, that daunt remotest kings;
Thy firm, unshaken virtue, ever brings

Victory home, though new rebellions raise
Their Hydra heads, and the false North displays
Her broken league, to imp their Serpent wings.
O yet a nobler task awaits thy hand,

(For what can war but endless war still breed?)
Till truth and right from violence be freed,
And public faith clear'd from the shameful brand
Of public fraud. In vain doth valour bleed,
While Avarice and Rapine share the land.

TO THE LORD GENERAL CROMWELL.*

CROMWELL, Our chief of men who through a cloud
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,

To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed. And on the neck of crown'd fortune proud

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Hast rear'd God's trophies, and his works pursued, While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued,

And Dunbar field resounds thy praises loud,

And Worcester's laureate wreath. Yet much remains

To conquer still; Peace hath her victories

No less renown'd than War: new foes arise Threat'ning to bind our souls with secular chains: Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

dressed to Gen. Fairfax at the seige of Colchester, which was carried on in the summer of 1648.

In the Author's manuscript is this incription: To the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652. On the proposals of certain ministers at the committee for propagation of the Gospel.

R*

TO SIR HENRY VANE THE YOUNGER.

Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old,
Than whom a better Senator ne'er held

The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repell'd
The fierce Epirot, and th' African bold,
Whether to settle peace, or to unfold

The drift of hollow states hard to be spell'd: Then to advise how War may, best upheld, Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold, In all her equipage; besides to know

Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learn'd which few have done :

The bounds of either sword to thee we owe;
Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans
In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

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ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN

PIEDMONT.*

AVENGE, O Lord thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones

*This persecution of the Protestants in Peidmont broke out in 1655. In May, that year, Cromwell wrote several letters to the Duke of Savoy, and other potentates and states complaining of that persecution. Echard tells us, that he proclaimed a fast, and caused large contributions to be gathered for them in England; that he sent his agents to the Duke of Savoy, a prince with whom he had no correspondence or commerce, and the next year, so engaged Cardinal Mazarine, and even terrified the Pope himself, without so much as doing any favour to the English Roman Catholics, that the Duke thought it necessary to restore all that he had taken from them, and renewed all those privileges they had formerly enjoyed. "So great (adds Echard) was the terror of his name; nothing being more usual than his saying, that his ships in the Medditerranean should visit Civita Vecchia, and the sound of his cannon should be heard in Rome."

Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipp'd stocks and stones, Forget not in thy book: record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient folds Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they

To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow A hundred fold, who having learn'd thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide,
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he, returning, chide;
Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?
I fondly ask but Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.

SONNETS.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

O NIGHTINGALE, that on yon bloomy spray
Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still;
Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill,
While the jolly Hours lead on propitious May.
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day,
First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill,
Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will
Have link'd that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate

Foretel my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; As thou, from year to year, hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why:

Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career,

But my late spring no bud or blossom shew'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arriv'd so near; And inward ripeness doth much less appear That some more timely-happy spirits endu'th.

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