To pardon willing; and to punish, loath;
You strike with one hand, but you heal with both.
Lifting up all that prostrate lye, you grieve
You cannot make the dead again to live.
When fate or error had our Age mis-led,
And o'er this nation such confusion spread;
The only cure which cou'd from heav'n come down,
Was so much pow'r and piety in one.
One whose extraction's from an ancient line,
Gives hope again that well-born men may shine:
The meanest in your nature mild and good,
The noble rest secured in your blood.
Oft have we wonder'd, how you hid in peace
A mind proportion'd to such things as these;
How such a ruling sp'rit you cou'd restrain,
And practise first over your self to reign.
[263] Your private life did a just pattern give
How fathers, husbands, pious sons shou'd live;
Born to command, your princely virtues slept
Like humble David's while the flock he kept:
But when your troubled country call'd you forth,
Your flaming courage, and your matchless worth
Dazling the eyes of all that did pretend,
To fierce contention gave a prosp'rous end.
Still as you rise, the state, exalted too,
Finds no distemper while 'tis chang'd by you;
Chang'd like the world's great scene, when without noise
The rising sun night's vulgar lights destroys.
Had you, some ages past, this race of glory
Run, with amazement we shou'd read your story;
But living virtue, all atchievements past,
Meets envy still to grapple with at last.
This Cæsar found, and that ungrateful age,
With losing him, went back to blood and rage.
Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.
That sun once set, a thousand meaner stars
Gave a dim light to violence and wars,
To such a tempest as now threatens all,
Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.