Classic Poem

I NEED no Muse to give my passion vent,
He brews his teares that studies to lament.
Verse chymically weeps; that pious raine
Distill'd with Art, is but the sweat o' th' braine.
Who ever sob'd in numbers? can a groane
Be quaver'd out by soft division?
Tis true, for common formall Elegies,
Not Bushells Wells can match a Poets eyes
In wanton water-works: hee'l tune his teares
From a Geneva Jig up to the Spheares.
But then he mournes at distance, weeps aloof,
Now that the Conduit head is our owne roof,
Now that the fate is publique, (we may call
It Britaines Vespers, Englands Funeral)
Who hath a Pensill to expresse the Saint,
But he hath eyes too, washing off the paint?
There is no learning but what teares surround
Like to Seths Pillars in the Deluge drown'd.
There is no Church, Religion is growne
From much of late, that shee's encreast to none;
Like an Hydropick body full of Rhewmes,
First swells into a bubble, then consumes.
The Law is dead, or cast into a trance,
And by a Law dough-bak't, an Ordinance.
The Lyturgie , whose doome was voted next,
Died as a Comment upon him the Text.
There's nothing lives, life is since he is gone,
But a Nocturnall Lucubration.
Thus you have seen deaths inventory read
In the sum totall — Canterburie's dead .
A sight would make a Pagan to baptize
Himselfe a Convert in his bleeding eyes:
Would thaw the rable, that fierce beast of ours,
(That which Hyena -like weeps and devoures)
Tears that flow brackish from their soules within,
Not to repent, but pickle up their sin.
Meane time no squallid griefe his looke defiles,
He guilds his sadder fate with noble smiles.
Thus the worlds eye with reconciled streames
Shines in his showers as if he wept his beames.
How could successe such villanies applaud?
The state in Strafford fell, the Church in Laud :
The twins of publike rage adjudg'd to dye,
For Treasons they should act, by Prophecy.
The facts were done before the Lawes were made,
The trump turn'd up after the game was plai'd.
Be dull great spirits and forbeare to climbe,
For worth is sin and eminence a crime.
No Church-man can be innocent and high,
'Tis height makes Grantham steeple stand awry.