Lord Strafford’s Meditations.
Lord Strafford’s Meditations in the Tower.
MSS. (Harl.)
Go, empty joys,
With all your noise,
And leave me here alone,
In sad sweet silence to bemoan
The fickle worldly height,
Whose danger none can see aright
Whilst your false splendors dim the sight.
Go, and ensnare,
With your trim ware,
Some other worldly wight,
And cheat him with your flattering sight!
Rain on his head a shower
Of honour, greatness, wealth, and power,
Then snatch it from him in an hour.
Fill his big mind
With gallant wind
Of insolent applause;
Let him not fear the curbing laws,
Nor king, nor people’s frown;
But dream on something like a crown,
Then, climbing upwards, tumble down!
Let him appear
In his bright sphere
Like Cynthia in her pride,
With star-like troops on every side;
For number and clear light,
Such as may soon o’erwhelm him quite,
And blind them both in one dead night!
Welcome, sad night,
Grief’s sole delight!
Thy mourning best agrees
With honor’s funeral obsequies.
In Thetis’ lap he lies,
Mantled with soft securities,
When too much sun light dims his eyes.
Was he too bold
Who needs would hold
With curbing reins to sway,
And make Sol’s fiery steeds obey?
Therefore as rash was I,
Who with ambitious wings did fly
In Charles’s Waine too hastily!
I fall! I fall!
Whom shall I call?
Alas! shall I be heard,
Who now am neither lov’d nor fear’d?
You, who have vow’d the ground
To kiss, where my blest steps were found,
Come, catch me at my last rebound!
Now each admires
Heaven’s twinkling fires,
Whilst from their glorious seat,
Their influence gives light and heat.
But oh! how few there are,
(Though danger from the act be far,)
Will run to catch a falling star!
O! wer’t our fate
To imitate
Those lights, whose pallidness
Argues no inward quietness!
Their course is one way bent,
Which is the course, there’s no dissent
In Heaven’s High Court of Parliament.