LONDONS OUT-CRY TO HER Sister-Cities of England.
REmarke (deare
Sisters of this noble Isle)
My dismall
Tragaedie: perhaps awhile
You safe may be, so long as my supply
Can be extorted by the Soldiery;
Whilst that their wolvish hands, like
Lycanthrops,
Our houses plundred have, and robb'd our shopps,
Despoyl'd our Churches, and defil'd our Wives,
Murder'd our Servants, and enthrall'd our lives;
But when they ruin'd have us and undone,
Expect your dreadfull Visitation.
What
Safety can we looke for from such, where
The Lyon, Tygre, Panther, Wolfe, and Beare,
(With such like beasts of prey) sit in
Committee,
Whose Salvage Natures have no sense of pitty?
When fierce
Lycaon is Dictator; when
Blood-sucking
Nero, Commodus, or then
When damn'd Apostatizing
Julian reign,
When Hell's broke loose, and all the Devils streyn
For the Supremacy, and who should be
The Whitest Devil by Hypocrisy.
When all our Lawfull
Princes banish'd are,
When a blind Cobler (for a bulke) the Chayr
Of State usurp's; when Grooms and Porters take
The Regal Sword, and Plead for Conscience sake;
When nothing but Rebellion can be said,
Or beggary the Tutors of their trade.
When
Church and
State in sad Confusion lie,
When nothing perk's up but cropp't
Anarchie.
There is no Safety by the
Hills or
Field,
Our fruitfull
Meads nothing but danger yeild,
Our Pastures, Gardins, Walkes, Streets, Lanes, High-wayes
With Theives and Robbers Plagu'd are, like those dayes,
When
Jeremie his
Lamentations wrote,
And
Sions Musick tun'd a mournfull Note.
Our
Senatours no more than
Stators are,
Rendred most vile and base: the
Speakers Chayr,
Which for five
Centuries hath had renown,
Is made the Scorn of every
Red-coat Clown.
The Glory of our head is fallen, and
Our headless members like dumb Statues stand.
The Basilick (of all the veins the chief)
Being Contus'd, obstructed, stopps in brief
The Faculty and Energy o'th' parts,
Contracts a Lethargie or worse on hearts,
So that the Bodies stupified, do lie
Senseless, halfe-dead, or at the point to die.
As 'tis in Naturalls so is our case,
The lawfull Magistrate, 'should stand in place,
As the sole Vital of the State, by force
Is now supprest, and thereby all the course
And Rules of Policy and Law subverted,
Justice exil'd, and Rapes of right asserted,
Murder and Theft, and what is most condemn'd,
By th' Law of God, (which more and more's Blasphem'd)
Is by our Vult'rous Crew, and Vip'rous Brood
Maintain'd to be the principle of good:
As if the seeds of Empire best are sown
In blood, and that when no man knowes his own,
And all things in the most distraction are,
Then should the onely Cure be for despaire,
And order nearest to return againe:
As when Chyrurgeons launcing of a veine,
Repell the virulence of Fevers, and
When Contraries bring best Effects to hand.
But may such sonns of blood like
Cyrus, be
Drench'd ore in blood, and never live to see
The Blessing of a second part of dayes,
And may their memory no greater praise
Have, than what
Cataline's Conspiracy
Obtein'd hath in the Roman History.
May such Subvertors of all right and reason
Receive the due rewards of Hell-bred treason.
May (like their Crimes) their names detested be,
And wither like good
Jonah's short-liv'd tree:
May such as will runn through stich, as they say,
In Mischief have at
last in full their pay.
He that would have my Famous Seat consum'd
In flames, and his Bituminous scent perfum'd,
With the Oblation of my Childrens Bones,
And all my Glory made an heap of Stones,
May he tormented be with greater skill
Alive, and then in Hell receive his fill,
By all Artifices the Devils can
Invent to torture such a
Julian.
Let Horror and Despaire (like
Nero,) seaze
Such, and their own Swords give um a release,
By their own hands, that Gods revenge may be
More Glorified in their iniquity;
And may his Gratious providence defend
Me and my Children, from Old
Rome's sad End.
FINIS.