Now war is all the world about,
And everywhere Erynnis reigns,
Or else, the torch so late put out,
The stench remains.

Holland for many years hath been
Of Christian tragedies the stage,
Yet seldom hath she played a scene
Of bloodier rage.

And France that was not long composed,
With civil drums again resounds,
And ere the old are fully closed
Receives new wounds.

The great Gustavus in the west
Plucks the Imperial Eagle's wing,
Than whom the earth did ne'er invest
A fiercer king;

Revenging lost Bohemia,
And the proud wrongs which Tilly did,
And tempereth the German clay
With Spanish blood.

What should I tell of Polish bands,
And the bloods boiling in the North?
'Gainst whom the furied Russians
Their troops bring forth:

Both confident. This in his purse,
And needy valour set on work;
He in his axe, which oft did worse
The invading Turk.

Who now sustains a Persian storm:
There hell, that made it, suffers schism:
This war, forsooth, was to reform
Mahometism.

Only the island which we sow,
(A world without the world) so far
From present wounds, it cannot show
An ancient scar.

White Peace, the beautifullest of things
Seems here her everlasting rest
To fix, and spreads her downy wings
Over the nest.

As when great Jove, usurping reign,
From the plagued world did her exile,
And tied her with a golden chain
To one blest isle;

Which in a sea of plenty swam,
And turtles sang on every bough;
A safe retreat to all that came,
As ours is now.

Yet we, as if some foe were here,
Leave the despised fields to clowns,
And come to save ourselves as 'twere
In walled towns.

Hither we bring wives, babes, rich clothes
And gems; till now my Sovereign
The growing evil doth oppose:
Counting in vain

His care preserves us from annoy
Of enemies his realms to invade,
Unless he force us to enjoy
The peace he made.

To roll themselves in envied leisure
He therefore sends the landed heirs,
Whilst he proclaims not his own pleasure
So much as theirs.

The sap and blood of the land, which fled
Into the root, and choked the heart,
Are bid their quickening power to spread
Through every part.

O, 'twas an act not for my Muse
To celebrate, nor the dull Age
Until the country air infuse
A purer rage!

And if the fields as thankful prove
For benefits received, as seed,
They will, to quite so great a love,
A virgil breed.

A Tityrus, that shall not cease
The Augustus of our world to praise
In equal verse, author of peace
And halcyon days.

Nor let the gentry grudge to go
Into those places whence they grew,
But think them blest they may do so.
Who would pursue

The smoky glory of the town,
That may go till his native earth,
And by the shining fire sit down
Of his own hearth,

Free from the griping scrivener's bands,
And the more biting mercer's books;
Free from the bait of oiled hands
And painted looks?

The country too, even chops for rain:
You that exhale it by your power
Let the fat drops fall down again
In a full shower.

And you bright beauties of the time,
That waste yourselves here in a blaze,
Fix to your orb and proper clime
Your wandering rays.

Let no dark corner of the land
Be unembellished with one gem,
And those which here too thick do stand
Sprinkle on them.