due,

Who from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere,
As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot,

Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old
Into another mould.

Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain
(But those do hold or break,
As men are strong or weak),

Nature, that hated emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the civil war,
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art,

Where, twining subtile fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook's narrow case,

That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands,
Did clap their bloody hands.

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;

Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bowed his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.

This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forced power:
So, when they did design
The Capitol's first line,

A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!

And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That doth both act and know.

They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confessed
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust;

Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the Republic's hand
(How fit he is to sway,
That can so well obey!),

He to the Commons' feet presents
A kingdom for his first year's rents,
And (what he may) forbears
His fame to make it theirs:

And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the public's skirt.
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having killed, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch,
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.

What may not then our isle presume
While victory his crest