NEW ENGLAND.
Dear Mother, cease complaints and wipe your eyes,
Shake off your dust, chear up and now arise,
You are my Mother Nurse, and I your flesh,
Your sunken bowels gladly would refresh,
Your griefs I pity, but soon hope to see,
Out of your troubles much good fruit to be;
To see those latter days of hop'd for good,
Though now beclouded all with tears and blood;
After dark Popery the day did clear,
But now the Sun in's brightness shall appear;
Blest be the Nobles of thy Noble Land,
With ventur'd lives for Truth's defence that stand;
Blest be thy Commons, who for common good,
And thy infringed Laws have boldly stood;
Blest be thy Counties, who did aid thee still,
With hearts and States to testifie their will;
Blest be thy Preachers, who did chear thee on,
O cry the Sword of God and Gideon;
And shall I not on them with Mero's curse,
That help thee not with prayers, Arms and purse?
And for myself let miseries abound,
If mindless of thy State I ere be found.
These are the dayes the Churches foes to crush,
To root out Popelings, head, tail, branch and rush;
Let's bring Baals' vestments forth to make a fire,
Their Mytires, Surplices, and all their Tire,
Copes, Rotchets, Crossiers, and such empty trash,
And let their Names consume, but let the flash
Light Christendome, and all the world to see,
We hate Romes whore, with all her trumpery.
Go on, brave Essex, with a Loyal heart,
Not false to King, nor to the better part;
But those that hurt his people and his Crown,
As duty binds, expel and tread them down,
And ye brave Nobles, chase away all fear,
And to this hopeful Cause closely adhere;
O Mother, can you weep and have such Peers,
When they are gone, then drown yourself in tears,
If now you weep so much, that then no more
The briny Ocean will o'erflow your shore.
These, these are they I trust, with Charles our King,
Out of all mists, such glorious days shall bring;
That dazzled eyes beholding much shall wonder,
At that thy settled peace, thy wealth and splendor.
Thy Church and weal establish'd in such manner,
That all shall joy, that then display'st thy Banner;
And discipline erected so I trust,
That nursing Kings shall come and lick thy dust.
Then justice shall in all thy courts take place,
Without respect of person, or of case;
Then Bribes shall cease, and Suits shall not stick long
Patience and purse of Clients oft to wrong;
Then high Commissions shall fall to decay,
And Pursivants and Catchpoles want their pay.
So shall thy happy nation ever flourish,
When truth and righteousness they thus shall nourish,
When thus in peace, thine Armies brave send out,
To sack proud Rome, and all her Vassals rout;
There let thy name, thy fame and glory shine,
As did thine Ancestors in Palestine;
And let her spoyls full pay with Interest be,
Of what unjustly once she poll'd from thee,
Of all the woes thou canst, let her be sped
And on her pour the vengeance threatened;
Bring forth the Beast that rul'd the World with 's beck,
And tear his flesh, and set your feet on 's neck;
And make his filthy Den so desolate,
To th' astonishment of all that knew his state.
This done, with brandish'd Swords to Turky goe,
For then what is 't, but English blades dare do?
And lay her waste for so 's the sacred Doom,
And to Gog as thou hast done to Rome.
Oh Abraham's seed lift up your heads on high,
For sure the day of your Redemption 's nigh;
The Scales shall fall from your long blinded eyes,
And him you shall adore who now despise,
Then fulness of the Nations in shall flow,
And Jew and Gentile to one worship go;
Then follows days of happiness and rest;
Whose lot doth fall, to live therein is blest.
No Canaanite shall then be found i' th' Land,
And holiness on horses bell's shall stand;
If this make way thereto, then sigh no more,
But if it all, thou did'st not see 't before;
Farewell, dear Mother, rightest cause prevail
And in a while, you'll tell another tale.
This, like all her earlier work, is heavy reading, the account given by "Old Age" in her "Four Ages of Man," of what he has seen and known of Puritan affairs, being in somewhat more lively strain. But lively was an adjective to which Mistress Anne had a rooted objection. Her contemporaries indulged in an occasional solemn pun, but the only one in her writings is found in the grim turn on Laud's name, in the "Dialogue" just quoted, in which is also a sombre jest on the beheading of Strafford.
"Old Age" recalls the same period, opening with a faint—very faint—suggestion of Shakespeare's thought in his "Seven Ages."
"What you have been, even such have I before
And all you say, say I, and somewhat more,
Babe's innocence, youth's wildness I have seen,
And in perplexed middle Age have been;
Sickness, dangers and anxieties have past,
And on this stage am come to act my last,
I have been young and strong and wise as you;
But now Bis pueri senes, is too true.
In every age I've found much vanity
An end of all perfection now I see.
It's not my valour, honor, nor my gold,
My ruined house now falling can uphold,
It's not my learning Rhetorick wit so large,
Hath now the power, death's warfare to discharge,
It's not my goodly state, nor bed of downs
That can refresh, or ease, if Conscience frown,
Nor from Alliance can I now have hope,
But what I have done well that is my prop;
He that in youth is Godly, wise and sage,
Provides a staff then to support his Age.
Mutations great, some joyful and some sad,
In this short pilgrimage I oft have had;
Sometimes the Heavens with plenty smiled on me,
Sometime again rain'd all Adversity,
Sometimes in honor, sometimes in disgrace,
Sometime an Abject, then again in place.
Such private changes oft mine eyes have seen,
In various times of state I've also been,
I've seen a Kingdom nourish like a tree,
When it was ruled by that Celestial she;
And like a Cedar, others so surmount,
That but for shrubs they did themselves account.
Then saw I France and Holland say'd Cales won,
And Philip and Albertus half undone,
I saw all peace at home, terror to foes,
But oh, I saw at last those eyes to close.
And then methought the clay at noon grew dark,
When it had lost that radiant Sunlike Spark;
In midst of griefs I saw our hopes revive,
(For 'twas our hopes then kept our hearts alive)
We changed our queen for king under whose rayes
We joy'd in many blest and prosperous dayes.
I've seen a Prince, the glory of our land
In prime of youth seiz'd by heaven's angry hand,
Which fil'd our hearts with fears, with tears our eyes,
Wailing his fate, and our own destinies.
I've seen from Rome an execrable thing,
A Plot to blow up nobles and their King,
But saw their horrid fact soon disappointed,
And Land Nobles say'd with their annointed.
I've Princes seen to live on others' lands;
A royal one by gifts from strangers' hands
Admired for their magnanimity,
Who lost a Prince-dome and a Monarchy.
I've seen designs for Ree and Rochel crost,
And poor Palatinate forever lost.
I've seen unworthy men advanced high,
And better ones suffer extremity;
But neither favour, riches, title, State,
Could length their days or once reverse their fate.
I've seen one stab'd, and some to loose their heads,
And others fly, struck both with gilt and dread;
I've seen and so have you, for tis but late
The desolation of a goodly state,
Plotted and acted so that none can tell
Who gave the counsel, but the Prince of hell.
Three hundred thousand slaughtered innocents
By bloody, Popish, hellish miscreants;
Oh, may you live, and so you will I trust,
To see them swill in blood until they burst.
I've seen a King by force thrust from his thrones
And an Usurper subt'ly mount thereon;
I've seen a state unmoulded, rent in twain,
But ye may live to see't made up again.
I've seen it plunder'd, taxt and soaked in blood,
But out of evill you may see much good.
What are my thoughts, this is no time to say.
Men may more freely speak another day;
These are no old-wives tales, but this is truth,
We old men love to tell what's done in youth."