Three Poems upon the death of the late Usurper Oliver Cromwell (1682)/Chapter 3

by Edmund Waller

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UPON THE LATE

STORM,

AND

DEATH

Of the Late

USURPER

Oliver Cromwel

Ensuing the same.

By Mr. Waller.

WE must resign; Heav'n His great Soul do's claim
In storms as loud, as His Immortal Fame:
His dying groans, his last Breath shakes our Isle,
And Trees uncut fall for His Funeral Pile,
About His palace their broad Roots are tost
Into the Air; So Romulus was lost:
New Rome in such a Tempest mis't their King,
And from Obeying fell to Worshipping.

On Oeta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
VVith ruin'd Okes and Pines about him spread:
The Poplar too, whose bough he wont to wear
On his Victorious Head, lay prostrate there.
Those his last fury from the Mountain rent,
Our dying Hero, from the Continent,
Ravish'd whole Towns; and Forts from Spaniards rest,
As his last Legacy to Britain left.
The Ocean which so long our hopes confin'd,
Could give no limits to His vaster mind;
Our Bounds inlargement was his latest toyl;
Nor hath he left us Prisoners to our Isle;
Under the Tropick is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath receiv'd our yoke.
From Civil Broils he did us disingage,
Found nobler objects for our Martial rage;
And with wise Conduct to his Country show'd
Their Ancient way of conquering abroad.
Ungrateful then, if we no Tears allow
To him that gave us Peace and Empire too.
Princes that fear'd him, grieve, concern'd to see
No pitch of glory from the Grave is free.
Nature her self took notice of his death,
And sighing swel'd the Sea with such a breath
That to remotest Shores her Billows rold,
Th' approaching Fate of her great-Ruler told.

 

FINIS