Suffer for crimes wherewith they'r unacquainted.
Some to strickt bounds confined are,
Some to remote; all judg'd without due tryall:
The cause, fond jealousie and fear,
Strange state, that fears such subjects as are loyall!
Whilst they that mean the rape o'th state,
Swim in smooth oyle, and wallow in all riot,
Intit'ling their black deeds to fate,
And put bad men in armes, to keep good quiet.
O whither doth the precipice
Of evill hurry men of base condition!
Made drunken with unjust successe,
They all the world grasp in their vast ambition.
Seest thou not JOVE rebellions scope?
'Lesse thy quick vengeance stopps their sudden rising,
They'l, like their elder brothers, hope
To depose thee too, and dare heavens surprising.
Hear, O JOVE, hear their blasphemies,
How all their wickednesse on thee they father.
Cheating the world with pious lies,
Saying, their rules from thy instinct they gather.
Dost thou not hear it boldly said,
JOVE bids us break all antient laws a sunder?
(At the dire speech ASTRAE fled)
Or hearing it, why sleeps so long thy Thunder?
Was it not worth one bolt to save
Him, who the world thy truest copy deem'd?
Whom all good men in reverence have,
Who thy laws highly, as we his, esteem'd?
Whom wilt not tempt, when these, they see
The great prosperitie of evill secures,
Away from down-trod right to flee?
When wrong, with the fair bait, successe, allures?
So would it be, but that there are
A wiser few, that know on high there fitteth
O'th world, an upright Governour,