THE KINGS DISGUISE.
ANd why a Tenant to this vile disguise,
Which who but sees blasphemes thee with his eyes?
My Twins of Light within their Pent-house shrink,
And hold it their Allegeance to wink.
Oh for a State-distinction to arraigne
CHARLES of High-Treason 'gainst my Soveraigne.
What an usurper to his Prince is wont,
Cloyster and shave him, He himselfe hath don't.
[Page 2]His muffled feature speaks him a Recluse,
Whose Ruines prove him a Religious House.
The Sun hath mov'd his beams from off his lamp,
And Majesty defac'd the Royall stamp.
Is't not enough thy Dignity's in thrall,
But thou'lt transmute it in thy shape and all?
As if thy Blacks were of too faint a dye
Without the tincture of Tautologie.
Flay an Egyptian from his Cassock skin,
Spun of his Countreys darknesse, line't within
With Presbyterian budge, that drowsie trance,
The Synods sable, foggy ignorance.
No bodily nor ghostly Negro could
Rough-cast thy figure in a sadder mould:
This Privie-chamber of thy shape would be
But the Close mourner of thy Royaltie.
'Twill breake the circle of thy Gaolcrs spell,
A Pearle within a rugged Oysters shell.
Heaven, which the Minster of thy Person ownes,
Would fine thee for Dilapidations.
Like to a martyr'd Abbeys courser doome,
Devoutly altered to a Pigeon roome:
Or like the Colledge by the changeling rabble,
Manchesters Elves, reform'd into a Stable.
Or if there be a prophanation higher,
Such is the Sacriledge of thine Attire.
[Page 3]By which th'art halfe depos'd, thou look'st like one
Whose lookes are under Sequestration.
Whose Renegado forme at the first glance
Shews like the selfe-denying Ordinance.
Angell of light, and darknesse too, I doubt,
Inspir'd within, and yet possess'd without.
Majestick twilight in the state of grace,
Yet with an excommunicated face.
Charles and his Maske are of a different mint,
A Psalme of mercy in a miscreant print.
The Sunne weares Midnight, Day is Beetle-brow'd,
And Lightning is in Keldar of a cloud.
Oh the accurst Stenographie of fate!
The Princely Eagle shrunk into a Bat.
What charme, what Magick vapour can it be
That shrinks his rayes to this Apostasie?
It is no subtile filme of Tiffany ayre,
No Cob-web vizard, such as Ladyes weare,
When they are vayl'd on purpose to be seene,
Doubling their lustre by their vanquisht Skreene:
Nor the false scabberd of a Prince [...] tough,
And three pil'd darknesse, like unto the slough
Of an imprisoned flame, 'tis Faux in graine
Darke Lanthorne to our high Meridian.
Hell belcht the dampe, the Warwick-Castle-Vote
Rang Britan's Curfeu, so our light went out.
[Page 4]Thy visage is not legible, the Letters
Like a Lords name writ in fantastick fetters,
Cloathes where a Switzer might be buryed quick,
Sure they would fit the Body Politique.
False beard enough to fit a Stages plot,
For that's the ambush of their wit, God wot.
Nay all his properties so strange appeare,
Y'are not i'th' presence, though the King be there.
A Libell is his dresse, a garbe uncouth,
Such as the Hue and Cry once purg'd at mouth.
Scribling Assasinate, thy lines attest
An eare marke due; Cubbe of the Blatant Beast,
Whose breath before 'tis syllabled for worse
Is Blasphemy unfledg'd, a Callow curse.
The Laplanders when they would sell a wind
Wafting to hell, bagge up thy phrase, and binde
It to the Barque, which at the voyage end▪
Shifts Poope, and brings the Collick in the Fiend.
But I'll not dubbe thee with a glorious scar,
Nor sink thy Skuller with a Man of War.
The black-mouth'd Si quis, and this slandering suite,
Both doe alike in picture execute.
But since w'are all call'd Papists, why not date,
Devotion to the Rags thus consecrate.
As Temples use to have their Porches wrought
With Sphynxes, creatures of an antick draught:
[Page 5]And puzling Pourtraitures to shew that there
Riddles inhabited, the like is here.
But pardon Sir, since I presume to be
Clarke of this Closet to Your Majesty:
Methinks in this your dark mysterious dresse
I see the Gospel coucht in Parables.
At my next view, my pur-blind fancy ripes,
And shews Religion in its dusky types.
Such a Text Royall, so obscure a shade
Was Solomon in Proverbs all array'd.
Come all ye Brats of this expounding age,
To whom the Spirit is in pupill age;
You that damne more then ever Sampson slew,
And with his engine, the same jaw-bone too:
How is't he scapes your Inquisition free,
Since bound up in the Bibles Liverie?
Hence Cabinet-untrussers, Pick-locks hence,
You that dimne jewels with your Bristol-sense:
And Characters, like Witches, so torment,
Till they confesse a guilt, though innocent.
Keyes for this Coffer you can never get,
None but S. Peter's op's this Cabinet.
This Cabinet, whose aspect would benight
Critick spectators with redundant Iight.
[Page 6]A Prince most seene, is least: What Scriptures call
The Revelation, is most mysticall.
Mount then thou Shadow Royall, and with haste
Advance thy Morning Star, Charles's overcast.
May thy strange journey, contradictions twist,
And force faire vveather from a Scottish mist.
Heavens Confessors are pos'd, those Star-ey'd Sages
Interpret an Eclipse, thus riding stages.
Thus Israel-like he travels with a cloud,
Both as a Conduct to him, and a shroud.
But oh! he goes to Gibeon, and renews
A league with mouldy bread and clouted shooes.
FINIS.