To the best of MONARCHS, His MAJESTY of GREAT
BRITAIN, &c.
CHARLES THE SECOND, A GRATULATORY POEM On the most happy Arrival of His most Excellent Majesty,
CHARLES the Second, by the Grace of God, King of
England, Scotland, France, and
Ireland, who landed at
Dover,
Friday,
May 25. 1660. to the most unspeakable Joy of His Subjects.
HEav'n at the Last hath heard my Prayers, I stand,
Full of fair hopes to kiss my Princes hand,
And need no flames that may new heats infuse,
Zeal can create a Verse without a Muse;
The wounds I have receiv'd, the years I've spent,
The months l've told in long imprisonment,
I look on now with Joy; who would not be
One day in Chains, to be for ever free?
My Prayers are heard, the King Himself is come,
The Grace and Glory of all Christendome.
'Tis He repairs our Breaches, and restores
The Land to safety, and doth heal our Sores;
Tis He that stroaks our Griefs, and wipes our Eyes,
Sets us in order, and doth make us wise:
For ne'r was Nation so before misled,
To court the Tail, and make the Rump their Head.
Where are the Saints now that would fain be known,
To have no other Holydayes but their own?
Where are our cruel Regicids, and all
That petulant crew we ANABAPTISTS call?
Whose wild Religion, and whose zeal doth border,
On Faction, Ruine, Falihood and Disorder;
Whose Gospel speaks it is too hard a thing,
To honour God, and to obey the King;
And from their Bibles do expunge that Text,
As too obliging, or too much perplext:
The day is now at hand that will declare,
What men of Conscience, and what Saints they are,
Who still pursue (oh most inhumane wrongs)
The Lords Anointed with their threatning tongues;
As if the Father slain, they had not done
Enough, unless they massacred the Son:
This to prevent, the King Himself draws nigh,
Full of His Cause, His Eye with Majesty,
His Brow with thunders arm'd, and on each hand
The Youth of Heav'n in files unnumbred stand,
His glorious Guard; for to the world be't known,
That Heaven is pleas'd to make this Cause his own:
For who the King affront, the like would do
Toth' KING of Kings, could they come at Him too.
Now as the Sun when his absented light
Approacheth neerer Day, doth smile out right,
And the thick Vapours of the night do fly
In guilty Tumults from his searching Eye;
So now the King in person hath begun
To show himself like the Meridian Sun,
To shine in all his Glories, and dispence
Throughout the Land his powerfull Influence;
The clouds of bold Rebellion, the false light
Of falser zeal, and Meteors of the Night,
The sullen Vapours, and the Mists that made
A great Confusion in so great a shade,
Shall waste before him, as he comes our States
Extreams to temper; for it pleas'd the Fates,
Though others travaild in the work, yet none
Shall heal our Griefs, but who our hearts did own;
Nor shall the North regain their antient worth,
But by that Monarch whom the North brought forth.
And Fame no sooner to our ears did bring
The welcome story of our landed King,
But all the Lords and Gentry of the Land
Made haste to wait upon his high Command,
So full their Trayn, so gallant their Array,
As if their splendor would outshine the day;
Who all as soon as they the King displayd,
Who can imagine what a shout was made?
The glittering of their cloaths outvy'd the Suns,
Hats in the Ayr flew up, Guns roard to Guns,
And Trumpets deafned Trumpets, who'd have thought
These e're in arms against each other fought?
Th' outlandish that did mark it, and stood by,
In our behalf all out aloud did cry,
Was never Nation now more blest than we?
Nor ever Monarch more admir'd then He.
How great will be our growing Joys we may
Presume will Crown his Coronation Day?
For to his matchless merit 'twill be more
Then ever King of ENGLAND had before;
At which, since Heav'n and Earth with shouts doring,
Let Heaven and Earth say both, GOD save the KING.
S. HOLLAND.
EDINBƲRGH, Re-printed by Christopher Higgins, in Harts Close, over against the Trone-Church, 1660.