Classic Poem

Now with a general peace the world was blest,
While Ours, a World divided from the rest,
A dreadful Quiet felt, and worser far
Than Armes, a sullen Interval of War:
Thus, when black Clouds draw down the lab'ring Skies,
Ere yet abroad the winged Thunder flies,
An horrid Stillness first invades the ear,
And in that silence We the Tempest fear.
Th' ambitious Swede like restless Billows tost
On this hand gaining what on that he lost,
Though in his life he Blood and Ruine breath'd,
To his now guideless Kingdom Peace bequeath'd;
And Heaven, that seem'd regardless of our Fate,
For France and Spain did Miracles create,
Such mortal Quarrels to compose in Peace
As Nature bred and Int'rest did encrease.
We sigh'd to hear the fair Iberian Bride
Must grow a Lilie to the Lilies side,
While Our cross Stars deny'd us Charles his bed
Whom Our first Flames and Virgin Love did wed.
For his long absence Church and State did groan;
Madness the Pulpit, Faction seiz'd the Throne:
Experienc'd Age in deep despair was lost
To see the Rebel thrive, the Loyal crost:
Youth that with Joys had unacquainted been
Envy'd gray hairs that once good Days had seen:
We thought our Sires, not with their own content,
Had ere we came to age our Portion spent.
Nor could our Nobles hope their bold Attempt
Who ruined Crowns would Coronets exempt:
For when by their designing Leaders taught
To strike at Pow'r which for themselves they sought,
The vulgar gull'd into Rebellion, arm'd,
Their blood to action by the Prize was warm'd;
The Sacred Purple then and Scarlet Gown,
Like sanguine Dye, to Elephants was shewn.
Thus when the bold Typhoeus scal'd the Sky
And forc'd great Jove from his own Heaven to fly,
(What King, what Crown from Treasons reach is free,
If Jove and Heaven can violated be?)
The lesser Gods that shar'd his prosp'rous State
All suffer'd in the Exil'd Thunderer's Fate.
The Rabble now such Freedom did enjoy,
As Winds at Sea, that use it to destroy:
Blind as the Cyclops , and as wild as he,
They own'd a lawless savage Libertie,
Like that our painted Ancestors so priz'd
Ere Empire's Arts their Breasts had Civiliz'd.