C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
From A Panegyric to My Lord Protector
By Edmund Waller (16061687)
W
You bridle faction, and our hearts command,
Protect us from ourselves, and from the foe;
Make us unite, and make us conquer too.
Think themselves injured that they cannot reign,
And own no liberty, but where they may
Without control upon their fellows prey.
To chide the winds and save the Trojan race,
So has your Highness, raised above the rest,
Storms of ambition tossing us repressed.
Restored by you, is made a glorious State;
The seat of empire, where the Irish come,
And the unwilling Scots, to fetch their doom.
With bending sails, each vessel of our fleet;
Your power extends so far as winds can blow,
Or swelling sails upon the globe may go.
To balance Europe, and its States to awe,
In this conjunction doth on Britain smile,
The greatest leader and the greatest isle!
By the rude ocean from the continent,
Or thus created, it was sure designed
To be the sacred refuge of mankind.
Justice to crave, and succor at your court;
And then your Highness, not for ours alone,
But for the world’s Protector, shall be known….
Finds no distemper while ’tis changed by you;
Changed like the world’s great scene! when, without noise,
The rising sun night’s vulgar lights destroys.
Run, with amazement we should read your story;
But living virtue, all achievements past,
Meets envy still to grapple with at last.
With losing him, went back to blood and rage;
Mistaken Brutus thought to break their yoke,
But cut the bond of union with that stroke.
Gave a dim light to violence and wars,—
To such a tempest as now threatens all,
Did not your mighty arm prevent the fall.
Which of the conquered world had made them lord,
What hope had ours, while yet their power was new,
To rule victorious armies, but by you?
Could order teach, and their high sp’rits compose;
To every duty could their minds engage,
Provoke their courage, and command their rage.
And angry grows, if he that first took pain
To tame his youth approach the haughty beast,
He bends to him, but frights away the rest.
Itself into Augustus’s arms did cast,
So England now does, with like toil opprest,
Her weary head upon your bosom rest.
Instruct us what belongs unto our peace.
Your battles they hereafter shall indite,
And draw the image of our Mars in fight:
And mighty kingdoms by your conduct won;
How, while you thundered, clouds of dust did choke
Contending troops, and seas lay hid in smoke.
And every conqueror creates a Muse!
Here, in low strains, your milder deeds we sing,
But there, my lord, we’ll bays and olives bring
O’er conquered nations, and the sea beside;
While all your neighbor princes unto you,
Like Joseph’s sheaves, pay reverence and due.