XXXVI.

LORD STRAFFORD'S MEDITATIONS IN

THE TOWER.1

(Author unknown. 1641.)

O, empty joys,

I.

With all your noise,

And leave me here alone,

In sad sweet silence to bemoan

The fickle worldly height,

Whose danger none can see aright,

Whilst your false splendours dim the sight.

Go, and ensnare

II.

With your trim ware
Some other worldly wight,

And cheat him with your flattering light;
Rain on his head a shower

Of honour, greatness, wealth, and power;
Then snatch it from him in an hour.

"Topographer," vol. ii. p. 234, from a Harl. MS. It is also in Archbishop Sancroft's MS., Tann. 465, p. 197; and was published as a broad-sheet ballad. A copy of that kind is printed in the "British Bibliographer," vol. ii. p. 181

III.

Fill his big mind

With gallant wind
Of insolent applause;

Let him not fear the curbing laws,
Nor king, nor people's frown;
But dream of something like a crown,
Then, climbing upwards, tumble down.

Let him appear

IV.

In his bright sphere

Like Cynthia in her pride,

With starlike troops on every side;
For number and clear light

Such as may soon o'erwhelm him quite,
And blind them both in one dead night.

V.

Welcome, sad Night,
Grief's sole delight,

Thy mourning best agrees
With honour's funeral obsequies.

In Thetis' lap he lies,

Mantled with soft securities,

Whose too much sunlight dims his eyes.

VI.

Was he too bold,

Who needs would hold

With curbing reins the Day, And make Sol's fiery steeds obey? Therefore as rash was I,

Who with ambitious wings did fly
In Charles's Wain too loftily.

I fall, I fall!

VII.

Whom shall I call?

Alas! shall I be heard

Who now am neither loved nor feared?
You, who have vowed the ground
To kiss where my blest steps were found,
Come, catch me at my last rebound!

VIII.

How each admires

Heaven's twinkling fires,
Whilst from their glorious seat
Their influence gives light and heat;
But O how few there are,

Though danger from the act be far,
Will run to catch a falling star !

IX.

O were't our fate

To imitate

Those lights whose pallidness

Argues no inward guiltiness!

Their course is one way bent;

Which is the cause there's no dissent In Heaven's High Court of Parliament.

XXXVII.

MAJESTY IN MISERY;

OR, AN IMPLORATION TO THE
KING OF KINGS.1

("Written by his late Majesty King Charles I., during his captivity at Carisbrook Castle, 1648.")

I.

REAT Monarch of the world, from whose power springs

The potency and power of [earthly] kings,

Record the royal woe my suffering sings;

II.

And teach my tongue, that ever did confine
Its faculties in truth's seraphic line,

To track the treasons of Thy foes and mine.

III.

Nature and law, by Thy divine decree,-
The only root of righteous royalty,-
With this dim diadem invested me;

66

'Burnet's "Memoirs of the Dukes of Hamilton," 1677, pp. 381-3, as a copy of verses written by his Majesty in his captivity, which a very worthy gentleman, who had the honour of waiting on him then, and was much trusted by him, copied out from the original; who avoucheth it to be a true copy."

IV.

With it the sacred sceptre, purple robe,
The holy unction and the royal globe;
Yet am I levelled with the life of Job.

V.

The fiercest furies, that do daily tread
Upon my grief, my grey discrowned head,
Are those that owe my bounty for their bread.

VI.

They raise a war, and christen it The Cause;
Whilst sacrilegious hands have best applause,
Plunder and murder are the kingdom's laws.

VII.

Tyranny bears the title of taxation;
Revenge and robbery are reformation;
Oppression gains the name of sequestration.

VIII.

My loyal subjects, who, in this bad season,
Attend me by the law of God and reason,
They dare impeach, and punish for high treason.

IX.

Next at the clergy do their furies frown;

Pious episcopacy must go down;

They will destroy the crosier and the crown.

X.

Churchmen are chained, and schismatics are freed; Mechanics preach, and holy fathers bleed;

The crown is crucified with the creed.