Classic Poem

And why so coffin'd in this vile disguise,
Which who but sees blasphemes thee with his eyes?
My twins of light within their pent-house shrinke,
And hold it their Allegeance to winke.
Oh for a State-distinction to arraigne
Charles of high Treason 'gainst my Soveraigne.
What an usurper to his Prince is wont,
Cloyster and shave him, he himselfe hath don't.
His muffled fabrick speakes him a recluse,
His ruines prove it a religious house.
The Sun hath mew'd his beames from off his lamp,
And Majesty defac'd the Royall stamp.
Is't not enough thy Dignity's in thrall,
But thou'lt transcribe it in thy shape and all?
As if thy Blacks were of too faint a die,
Without the tincture of Tautologie.
Flay an Egyptian for his Cassock skin
Spun of his Countreys darknesse, line't within
With Presbyterian budge, that drowsie trance,
The Synods sable, foggy ignorance:
Nor bodily nor ghostly Negro could
Rough-cast thy figure in a sadder mould.
This Privie-chamber of thy shape would be
But the Close mourner to thy Royaltie.
Then breake the circle of thy Tailors spell,
A Pearle within a rugged Oysters shell.
Heaven, which the Minster of thy Person owns,
Will fine thee for Dilapidations.
Like to a martyr'd Abbeys courser doome,
Devoutly alter'd to a Pigeon roome:
Or like the Colledge by the changeling rabble,
Manchesters Elves, transform'd into a Stable.
Or if there be a prophanation higher,
Such is the Sacriledge of thine Attire.
By which th 'art halfe depos'd, thou look'st like one
Whose looks are under Sequestration.
Whose Renegado form, at the first glance,
Shews like the self-denying Ordinance.
Angell of light, and darknesse too, I doubt,
Inspir'd within, and yet posses'd without.
Majestick twilight in the state of grace,
Yet with an excommunicated face.
Charles and his Maske are of a different mint,
A Psalme of mercy in a miscreant print.
The Sun wears Midnight, Day is Beetle-brow'd,
And Lightning is in Keldar of a cloud.
Oh the accurst Stenographie of fate!
The Princely Eagle shrunke into a Bat.
What charme, what Magick vapour can it be
That checkes his rayes to this Apostasie?
It is no subtile filme of tiffany ayre,
No Cob-web vizard, such as Ladies weare,
When they are veyl'd on purpose to be seene,
Doubling their lustre by their vanquisht Skreene:
No, the false scabberd of a Prince is tough
And three-pil'd darknesse, like the smoaky slough
Of an imprisoned flame, 'tis Faux in graine,
Darke Lanthorn to our bright Meridian.
Hell belcht the damp, the Warmick -Castle-Vote
Rang Britains Curfeu, so our light went out.
The black offender, should he weare his sin
For penance, could not have a darker skin.
Thy visage is not legible, the letters,
Like a Lords name, writ in phantastick fetters:
Cloathes where a Switzer might be buried quicke,
As overgrown as the Body Politique.
False beard enough, to fit a stages plot,
For that's the ambush of their wit, God wot.
Nay all his properties so strange appeare,
Y' are not i' th' presence, though the King be there.
A Libell is his dresse, a garb uncouth,
Such as the Hue and Cry once purg'd at mouth.
Scribling Assasinate, thy lines attest
An eare-mark due; Cub of the Blatant Beast,
Whose breath before 'tis syllabled for worse,
Is blasphemy unfledg'd, a callow curse.
The Laplanders when they would sell a wind
Wafting to hell, bag up thy phrase, and bind
It to the Barque, which at the voyage end
Shifts Poop, and breeds the Collick in the fiend.
But I'le not dub thee with a glorious scar,
Nor sinke thy Skuller with a Man of War.
The black-mouth'd Si quis and this slandering suite,
Both doe alike in picture execute.
But since w' are all call'd Papists, why not date
Devotion to the rags thus consecrate.
As Temples use to have their Porches wrought
With Sphynxes, creatures of an antick draught,
And puzling Pourtraitures, to shew that there
Riddles inhabited, the like is here.
But pardon Sir, since I presume to be
Clarke of this Closet to Your Majestie;
Me thinks in this your dark mysterious dresse
I see the Gospell coucht in Parables.
The second view my pur-blind fancy wipes,
And shewes Religion in its dusky types.
Such a Text Royall, so obscure a shade
Was Solomon in Proverbs all array'd.
Now all ye brats of this expounding age,
To whom the spirit is in pupillage;
You that damne more then ever Sampson slew,
And with his engine, the same jaw-bone too:
How is 't Charles 'scapes your Inquisition free,
Since bound up in the Bibles Liverie?
Hence Cabinet-Intruders, Pick-locks hence,
You that dim Jewells with your Bristoll-sense:
And Characters, like Witches, so torment,
Till they confesse a guilt, though innocent.
Keyes for this Cypher you can never get,
None but S. Peter 's op's this Cabinet.
This Cabinet, whose aspect would benight
Critick spectators with redundant light.
A Prince most seen, is least: What Scriptures call
The Revelation, is most mysticall.
Mount then thou shadow royall, and with haste
Advance thy morning star, Charles 's overcast.
May thy strange journey contradictions twist,
And force faire weather from a Scottish mist
Heavens Confessors are pos'd, those star-ey'd Sages,
To interpret an Ecclipse thus riding stages.
Thus Israel -like he travells with a cloud,
Both as a Conduct to him, and a shroud.
But oh! he goes to Gibeon , and renewes
A league with mouldy bread, and clouted shooes.