But even that policy of my enemies is so far venial as it was necessary to their designs, by scandalous articles and all irreverent demeanor to seek to drive her out of my kingdoms; lest by the influence of her example-eminent for love as a wife and loyalty as a subject-she should have converted to, or retained in their love and loyalty all those whom they had a purpose to pervert. The less I may be blest with her company, the more I will retire to God and my own heart, whence no malice can banish her. My enemies may envy, but they can never deprive me of the enjoyment of her virtues while I enjoy myself. Thou, O Lord, whose justice at present sees fit to scatter us, let Thy mercy, in Thy due time, reunite us on earth, if it be Thy will; however, bring us both at last to Thy heavenly kingdom. Preserve us from the hands of our despiteful and deadly enemies, and prepare us by our sufferings for Thy presence. Though we differ in some things as to religion, which is my greatest temporal infelicity, yet, Lord, give and accept the sincerity of our affections, which desire to seek, to find, to embrace every truth of Thine. Let both our hearts agree in the love of Thyself, and Christ crucified for us. Teach us both what Thou wouldest have us to know in order to Thy glory, our public relations, and our souls' eternal good, and make us careful to do what good we know. Let neither ignorance of what is necessary to be known, nor unbelief or disobedience to what we know, be our misery or our willful default. Let not this great scandal of those my subjects which profess the same religion with me, be any hindrance to her love of any truth Thou wouldst have her to learn, nor any hardening of her in any error Thou wouldst have cleared to her. Let mine and other men's constancy be an antidote against the poison of their example. Let the truth of that religion I profess be represented to her judgment with all the beauties of humility, loyalty, charity, and peaceableness, which are the proper fruits and ornaments of it; not in the odious disguises of levity, schism, heresy, novelty, cruelty, and disloyalty, which some men's practices have lately put upon it. Let her see Thy sacred and saving truths as Thine, that she may believe, love, and obey them as Thine, cleared from all rust and dross of human mixtures. That in the glass of Thy truth she may see Thee in those mercies which Thou hast offered to us in Thy Son Jesus Christ our only Saviour, and serve Thee in all those holy duties which most agree with His holy doctrine and most imitable example. The experience we have of the vanity and uncertainty of all human glory and greatness in our scatterings and eclipses, let it make us both so much the more ambitious to be invested in those durable honors and perfections which are only to be found in Thyself, and obtained through Jesus Christ. AN HORATIAN ODE UPON OLIVER CROMWELL'S RETURN FROM IRELAND IN 1650. BY ANDREW MARVELL. [ANDREW MARVELL, English poet and satirist, was born 1621, in Holderness; entered Trinity College, Cambridge, was captured by the Jesuits and taken to London, recaptured and returned to Trinity (1638); becoming unsettled (perhaps by his father's drowning in 1640), he was expelled in 1641; traveled for years on the Continent; in 1650 was tutor to Lord Fairfax's daughter, and wrote "Poems of the Country," and "Poems of Imagination and Love" (in part); in 1652, to Cromwell's nephew Dutton; 1657-1658, assistant Latin secretary to Milton; 1658, member of Richard Cromwell's Parliament, and remained in Parliament till death, almost through Charles II. 's reign, except when (1663-1665) he was secretary to Lord Carlisle's embassy to the Northern Powers. His correspondence is large and valuable. Politically he was a strong and open monarchist, but a loyal adherent to any de facto government. His chief satirical works were: "The Rehearsal Transprosed" (1672), against a bigoted clergyman who claimed the right of persecution for the State; a rejoinder to his reply (1673); "Mr. Smike, or the Divine in Mode" (1676); a mock "King's Speech" (1675). In 1678 he published a powerful pamphlet, "The Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Power," which aroused great indignation. He died the same year. He was a man not only of great wit, charm, and scholarship, but of the loftiest integrity.] THE forward youth that would appear, Nor in the shadows sing 'Tis time to leave the books in dust, The corselet of the hall. So restless Cromwell could not cease But through adventurous war And like the three-forked lightning, first Breaking the clouds where it was nurst, Did thorough his own side His fiery way divide. For 'tis all one to courage high, And, with such, to inclose, Is more than to oppose. Then burning through the air he wen And Cæsar's head at last Did through his laurels blast. "Tis madness to resist or blame Who, from his private gardens, where He lived reservèd and austere, (As if his highest plot To plant the bergamot,) Could by industrious valor climb Though justice against fate complain, And plead the ancient rights in vainBut those do hold or break, As men are strong or weak. Nature, that hateth emptiness, Allows of penetration less, And therefore must make room What field of all the civil war, He to the commons' feet presents His fame to make it theirs: And has his sword and spoils ungirt, Falls heavy from the sky, She, having killed, no more doth search But on the next green bough to perch, Where, when he first does lure, The falconer has her sure. What may not then our isle presume, While victory his crest does plume? What may not others fear If thus he crowns each year? As Cæsar, he, erelong, to Gaul; To Italy an Hannibal; And to all states not free The Pict no shelter now shall find Happy, if in the tufted brake But thou, the war's and fortune's son, And, for the last effect, Besides the force it has to fright |