Classic Poem

Woe to the idle shepherd that leaveth his flock.

Zech. 11:7. With a just applause of those worthy divines that stay with us, 1665.

Beloved, and he sweetly thus goes on;
Now, where's Beloved? Why, Beloved's gone?
No morning matins now, nor evening song;
Alas! The parson cannot stay so long.
With Clerkenwell it fares as most in town,
The light-heeled Levite's broke and the spark flown.
Broke did I say? They ne'er had quit the place
Had they but set up with a spark of grace!
They did the pulpit as a coffin greet
And took the surplice for a winding-sheet.
Had that so scared them? At the bells' sad tolls
They might have laid them by and learned of Paul's.
But for their parts, who will come in their rooms?
They are not mad to live among the tombs.
See how they choose three months to fly the rod
And dare not fall into the hands of God.
For God of persons no respecter is,
Then to respect themselves (pray) is't amiss?
They that should stay and teach us to reform
Gird up their loins and run to 'scape the storm,
And winged with fear, they flee to save their lives
Like Lot, from Sodom, with their brats and wives.
This is a tribe that for His punishments
Fear God, but keep not His commandments.
They dread the plague and dare not stand its shock,
Let wolves or lions feed the fainting flock;
They made the sheep the subject now, men say,
Not so much of their prayer, as their prey.
But they are gone to have (it now appears)
The country hear them with their harvest-ears,
Whilst here at home we find Christ's saying true,
The harvest great is, but the lab'rers few.
Yet, like enough, the heat o'th' day being o'er,
You'll have them here again at the 'leventh hour.
Think you these men believe with holy Paul
For them to be dissolved is best of all?
Then, their own bodies they would never mind
More than the souls of those they left behind.
Who now, those sons of Aaron being fled,
Shall stand between the living and the dead?
We have at home the plague, abroad the sword,
And will they add the famine of the word?
But 'tis no matter, let what will befall,
A recantation sermon pays for all.
Ne saevi, magne Sacerdos!

 For you that stay, I have another sense;
These I revile, but you I reverence.
You have stood firm and God of mercy craved,
And holding out unto the end are saved.
You the true shepherds are, that would not keep
Your lives a minute, would they save the sheep.
Not hirelings, that away in peril sneak,
And leave the stones out of the wall to speak.
Whose heinous guilt is of a dye so deep,
It makes the dead even through the marble weep.
You, you have stood to't, as unmoved as rocks,
And proved yourselves the only orthodox.
You have at Christ's command handed your lives
Without excuse of oxen, farms, or wives.
To your shall therefore glorious crowns be given,
And you shall shine bright as the stars in heaven.
Of life and death before you, well you choose,
For who will lose shall save, will save shall lose.
With reverence to the sacred word I shall
My theme an emblem of the Bible call:
For the canonical are those that stay,
They that obscure are the Apocrypha,
Of whom a man shall make (nay e'en St. John)
No revelation till the plague be gone.
Well, let them march; we have the better bread:
The wheat's the purer, now the chaff is fled.
Farewell wild grapes! For my part let 'em pass:
The gleanings better than the vintage was,
And let apostates ramble where they will,
The church reserves her better angels still
Which she embraces, for in vain she cares
For wand'ring planets that has fixed stars.
Praelucendo pereo .