Since, happy saint, since it has been of late
Either our blindness or our fate,
To lose the providence of thy cares
Pity a miserable church's tears,
That begs the powerful blessing of thy prayers.
Some angel, say, what were the nation's crimes,
That sent these wild reformers to our times:
Say what their senseless malice meant,
To tear religion's lovely face:
Strip her of every ornament and grace;
In striving to wash off th'imaginary paint?
Religion now does on her death-bed lie,
Heart-sick of a high fever and consuming atrophy;
How the physicians swarm to show their mortal skill,
And by their college arts methodically kill:
Reformers and physicians differ but in name,
One end in both, and the design the same;
Cordials are in their talk, while all they mean
Is but the patient's death, and gain--
Check in thy satire, angry Muse,
Or a more worthy subject choose:
Let not the outcasts of an outcast age
Provoke the honour of my Muse's rage,
Nor be thy mighty spirit rais'd,
Since Heaven and Cato both are pleas'd--
[The rest of the poem is lost.]
[Footnote 1: Born Jan., 1616-17; died 1693. For his life, see "Dictionary
of National Biography."--_W. E. B._]