Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham

On the Statue of King Charles I., at Charing Cross, in the Year 1674

That the First Charles does here in triumph ride,
See his son reign where he a martyr died,
And people pay that rev’rence as they pass,
(Which then he wanted!) to the sacred brass,
Is not the effect of gratitude alone,
To which we owe the statue and the stone;
But Heaven this lasting monument has wrought,
That mortals may eternally be taught
Rebellion, though successful, is but vain,
And kings so kill’d rise conquerors again.
This truth the royal image does proclaim,
Loud as the trumpet of surviving Fame.