More
tolerable
are the lion-king's slaughters.
Marvell - Poems
In very dark nights sometimes you may find him,
With a harlot got up on my crupper behind him.
CHARING.
Pause brother awhile, and calmly consider
What thou hast to say against my royal rider.
WOOL-CHURCH.
Thy priest-ridden king turned desperate fighter
For the surplice, lawn-sleeves, the cross, and the
mitre ;
Till at last on the scaffold he was left in the
lurch.
By knaves, who cried up themselves for the
church,
Archbishops and bishops, archdeacons and deans.
CHARING.
Thy king will ne*er fight unless for his queans.
WOOL-CHURCH.
He that dies for ceremonies, dies like a fool.
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266 THE POEMS
CHARING.
The king on thy back is a lamentable tool.
WOOL-CHURCH.
The goat and the lion I equally hate,
And freemen alike value life and estate ;
Though the father and son be different rods,
Between the two scourgers we find little odds ;
Both infamous stand in three kingdoms' votes,
This for picking our pockets, that for cutting our
throats.
CHARINO.
More tolerable are the lion-king's slaughters.
Than the goat making whores of our wives and
our daughters :
The debauched and cruel since they equally
gall us,
I had rather bear Nero than Sardanapalus.
WOOL-CHURCH.
One of the two tyrants must still be our case.
Under all who shall reign of the false Stuart's
race.
DeWitt and Cromwell had each a brave soul,
I freely declare it, I am for old Noll ;
Though his goverament did a tyrant resemble,
He made England great, and his enemies
tremble.
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OP MARVELL. 267
CHARING.
Thy rider puts no man to death in his wrath,
But is buried alive in lust and in sloth.
WOOL-CHURCH.
What is thy opinion of James, Duke of York ?
CHARING.
The same that the frogs had of Jupiter's stork.
With the Turk in his head, and the Pope in his
heart.
Father Patrick's disciples will make £lngland
smart
If e'er he be king, I know Bntain's doom,
We must all to a stake, or be converts to Rome.
Ah, Tudor !
