James and Mary Ford, eds. Every Day in the Year. 1902.
May 29Charles the Second
By William Wordsworth (17701850)(Born May 29, 1630)
W
With frantic love—his kingdom to regain
Him Virtue’s Nurse, Adversity, in vain
Received, and fostered in her iron breast;
For all she taught of hardiest and of best,
Or would have taught, by discipline of pain
And long privation, now dissolves amain,
To wantonness.—Away, Circean revels!
But for what gain? if England soon must sink
Into a gulf which all distinction levels—
That bigotry may swallow the good name,
And, with that draught, the life-blood: misery, shame,
By Poets loathed; from which Historians shrink!