A POEM UPON HIS MAIESTIES CORONATION the 23. of April 1661. Being St. Georges day.
—humano generi Natura benigni
Nil dedit, aut tribuet moderato principe majus:
Buchan. Geneth. Jacobi Regis.
LONDON, Printed for Gabriel Bedel and Thomas Collins, near the Middle-Temple-Gate: 1661.
To His Sacred Majesty.
IF elder times could to St. George allow
A double Feast, what shall we then add now?
Now that another George with better right
Then that suspected Cappadocian Kinght;
May claim our Nations patronage, or share
At least the glories of the Kalendar;
When now our Royal Charles, as good as great,
Hath chose this day t' ascend the regal Seat:
As it falls out i'th' Romane offices,
Where two Saints meet, the greater drowns the less.
Who yet commemorations duly share;
So though the day to Charles his Crown adhere:
Thou George shalt never unremembred be,
Still Tropaeophorus shall be fixt on thee.
Ye heavens that long have wept th' untimely fall
Of Gloc'ster, and his sisters Funeral:
Put on your purest azure, mak't appear,
As in our griefs, you in our joys do share:
And thou bright Sun comply with our desires,
Dispence thy clearest inoffensive fires:
Only strike Envy blind, that will not see
Charles is heavens care, and Earths felicity.
My prayer is heard, the day serene shall be
As fair-ey'd Peace, or prosperous Loyalty,
Nature must be restrain'd, and storms suspended
Till the great Rites and Festival be ended:
So the obedient waters stand a wall
Till Israels march be past, and then they fall:
While various entertainments cause your stay,
Dread Sir, let it be lawful to survey
Beside your native Titles to a Crown
How God by more design'd you to the Throne.
Impatient man, 'tis true, thinks each distress
Forty years travel in the wildernesse;
But Canaan once obtain'd, he finds th'intent
Had more of kindness in't, then punishment:
Peril by War in Worc'sters fatal day,
Flight, that no Councel brooks, nor wise delay,
Pursuit, as close as gold or threats can make,
To bribe poor men, and womens faith to shake,
Perils by sea, corrupted Servant-spies,
False friends at home, abroad unkind Allies;
These and a thousand Accidents there lay
So many fiery Serpents in your way,
Yet looking up you liv'd; and in an houre
Man thought not of, a weak despised power
Confounds the mighty, doth by arts asswage
The mutinous souldier, and the peoples rage,
Works their desires, till like a love-sick maid,
They grow impatient that they are delay'd
Their Princes sight, and labour who shall bring
Their earliest tribute to their injur'd King;
God (said your wise great minister of state)
Would not have done so much for one ingrate,
For one he did not love, and will defend
'Gainst all the force bad men and devils can send.
But every pers'nal blessing heaven bestows
Upon good Princes, to their Subjects flows;
Their very suffrings rightly understood
Are all diffusive to their peoples good.
After a tedious exile undergone
Malcome assum'd his murthred Fathers Throne,
And Scotland reap'd from that calamity
Th' effects of Justice, and of piety;
And you, great Sir, distress'd in forraign parts,
Return improv'd in all the Kingly Arts;
Courts are luxuriant soyles where vertues seeds
In youth are easie over-run with weeds;
But trouble, though the travail be severe,
Hath glory oft i'th' birth to be its Heire.
Time was (and 'twas a tedious time the while)
The peoples terrour, was the Rulers smile;
When armed Keepers of our Libertie
Would tell imprison'd men that they were free,
When false Protectors would again obtrude
For verbal freedom, real servitude;
When Dicaearchus gods both did adore,
Iniquity, and thirst of humane gore;
But now the Head and Members correspond,
Aptly united by their legal Bond;
Good is no longer good, that doth not bring
The people freedome, Honour to the King;
Nor is that good that benefits the State,
If Church-revenues it exterminate;
Justice the centre hath, and doth comply
With all the points of the Periphery;
Thus, Royal Sir, you thought you had not done
When civil right's restor'd, the Church alone
Should unregarded weep, and Caesar's due
Obtain'd, 'twas just that God should have his too;
Orders his due, and holy Rites repaire,
A decent House, and a considerate Prayer;
The Churches care you have deriv'd from yours
To pious, reverend, learned Confessors:
If Sir your Royal Father can look down
Upon the rayes of Your exalted Crown,
Sure 'twill augment his joys to see You stand
The Faiths Defender from his last command;
Which he foresaw at your return would be
Your Kingdome's, and your own securitie.
But oh what words can speak your charity!
Your martyr'd fathers blood for blood did cry,
And must be heard, Justice and Nature call,
That to appease his Ghost some Ʋictims fall;
And yet for blood of that unvalued price
They were too thin, too lean a sacrifice:
But all your pers'nal wrongs you did forgive,
And gave them life that would not have you live;
So the kind Balsom-tree receives a wound,
And makes the hand that gave it whole and sound;
So the Palmeto pierc'd, new strength confers
By'ts Soveraign juyce to dying Travellers.
France, Holland, Flanders, Germany you view'd,
Saluted Spaine; and yet by none subdu'd
Came purely English home, and from each clime
You brought their virtues with you, not their crime;
Thus whilst prophaness, oaths, debauch'd excesse
Your own example, and Your Laws suppress,
You do oblige us by innumerous bands
For your own goodness first, and then the Lands.
The Muses, long disorder'd by their fears,
And had no moisture left them but their tears,
From your best influence shall numbers raise
T'outlast the Cedar, and reserve the Bayes:
The Seamans Art, and his great end, Commerce
Through all the corners of the Universe,
Are not alone the subject of Your care,
But Your delight, and You their Polar-star:
And even Mechanick Arts do find from you
Both entertainment and improvement too:
As by its genial heat the Sun doth bring
To the cold Muscovite a present Spring;
So wonders wait where e're You raise Your head,
You cheere the drooping, and revive the dead.
Such should the Prince be, not whom Civil War
And Nations ruin'd Liberties prefer;
But Peace, and Heaven, by prayer prevail'd upon,
Do usher to the triumphs of a Crown;
And such a one had Brutus liv'd to see
He would have lov'd as his dear Libertie:
Old sullen Cato gladly would have made
His gay appearance in your Cavalcade,
Hugd Your best Citizens, that had decreed
Triumphal Arches as Your vertues meed;
And Paetus had inscrib'd, had he been here,
On each, To Jove your great Deliverer;
This on their hearts do all Your Liegemen bring,
Whilst their glad mouths Jo Triumph sing
To You great Sir, that thus deserve a Crown,
Before you would be pleas'd to put it on.
That Royal Sir remains, and is the care
Your Prelates claime, from whose prevailing Prayer
And sacred Unction may You be indu'd
With Glory, Holinesse and fortitude,
May You have all assistance from above,
And may You alwayes live, Your people love,
Your foes dismay if any dare to stir,
And Europe own you for her Arbiter:
Then let some daring Muse hereafter rise
And teach the World your bloodless Victories;
Sing how in Grace, your Empires Base was set,
So Jove's first stil'd the good, and then the great;
Sing how some Princes of your Neighbour France
By single vertues did their name advance,
The great, the godly, hardy, wise, the just,
You whom a noon-day star declar'd August,
Cannot to such a diminution fall
To be denominate from one, but all.
FINIS.