From a backsliding saint that pretend t’ acquiesce;
From crossing of proverbs (let ’um hang that confess);
From a sniveling cause, in a pontificall dress,
And two lawyers, with the devil and his dam in a mess;
From fools and knaves, etc.
From those that trouble the waters to mend the fishing,
And fight the Lord’s battles under the devil’s commission,
Such as eat up the nation, whilst the government’s a-dishing;
And from a people when it should be doing, stands wishing;
From fools and knaves, etc.
From an everlasting mock-parliament—and from none;
From Strafford’s old friends—Harry, Jack, and John;
From our solicitor’s wolf-law deliver our King’s son;
And from the resurrection of the Rump that is dead and gone;
From fools and knaves, etc.
From foreign invasion and commotions at home;
From our present distraction, and from work to come;
From the same hand again Smectymnus, or the bum,
And from taking Geneva in our way to Rome;
From fools and knaves, etc.
From a hundred thousand pound tax to keep knaves by the score
(But it is well given to these that turn’d those out of door);
From undoing ourselves in plaistering old sores;
He that set them a-work, let him pay their scores;
From fools and knaves, etc.
From saints and tender consciences in buff;
From Mounson in a foam, and Haslerig in a huff;
From both men and women that think they never have enough;
And from a fool’s head that looks through a chain and a duff;
From fools and knaves, etc.
From those that would divide the gen’ral and the city;
From Harry Martin’s girl, that was neither sweet nor pretty;
From a faction that has neither brain nor pity:
From the mercy of a phanatique committee;
From fools and knaves, etc.
Preserve us, good Heaven, from entrusting those
That ha’ much to get and little to lose;
That murther’d the father, and the son would depose
(Sure they can’t be our friends that are their country’s foes);
From fools and knaves, etc.
From Bradshaw’s presumption, and from Hoyle’s despairs;
From rotten members, blind guides, preaching aldermen, and false may’rs;
From long knives, long ears, long parliaments, and long pray’rs;
In mercy to this nation—Deliver us and our heirs;
From fools and knaves, etc.