To the King on New-yeares Day, 1638
This day inlarges every narrow mind,
Makes the Poor bounteous, and the Miser kind;
Poets that have not wealth in wisht excesse,
I hope may give like Priests, which is to blesse.
And sure in elder times the Poets were
Those Priests that told men how to hope and feare,
Though they most sensually did write and live,
Yet taught those blessings, which the Gods did give,
But you (my King) have purify’d our flame,
Made wit our virtue which was once our shame;
For by your own quick fires you made ours last,
Reform’d our numbers till our songs grew chast.
Farre more thou fam’d Augustus ere could doe
With’s wisdome, (though it long continued too)
You have perform’d even in your Moon of age;
Refin’d to Lectures, Playes, to Schooles a stage.
Such vertue got[,] why is your Poet lesse
A Priest then his who had a power to blesse?
So hopefull is my rage that I begin
To shew that feare which strives to keep it in:
And what was meant a blessing soars so high
That it is now become a Prophesie.
Your selfe (our Plannet which renewes our year)
Shall so inlighten all, and every where,
That through the Mists of error men shall spy
In the dark North the way to Loyalty;
Whilst with your intellectuall beames, you show
The knowing what they are that seeme to know.
You like our Sacred and indulgent Lord,
When the too-stout Apostle drew his sword,
When he mistooke some secrets of the cause,
And in his furious zeale disdain’d the Lawes,
Forgetting true Religion doth lye
On prayers, not swords against authority.
You like our substitute of horrid fate
That are next him we most should imitate,
Shall like to him rebuke with wiser breath,
Such furious zeale, but not reveng’d with death.
Like him the wound that’s giv’n you strait shall heal,
Then calm by precept such mistaking zeal.