Till such vast numbers swell the countless sum,
That the wide grave, and wider hell want room.
Great was that tyrant's wish, which should be mine,
Did I not scorn the leavings of a sin;
Freely I would bestow 't on England now,
That the whole nation with one neck might grow,
To be sliced off, and you to give the blow.
What neither Saxon rage could here inflict,
Nor Danes more savage, nor the barbarous Pict;
What Spain or Eighty-eight could e'er devise,
With all its fleet, and freight of cruelties;
What ne'er Medina[1] wished, much less could dare,
And bloodier Alva[2] would with trembling hear;
What may strike out dire prodigies of old,
And make their mild and gentler acts untold;
What heaven's judgments, nor the angry stars,
Foreign invasions, nor domestic wars,
Plague, fire, nor famine could effect or do;
All this, and more be dared, and done by you.
But why do I with idle talk delay
Your hands, and while they should be acting, stay?
Farewell———
If I may waste a prayer for your success,
Hell be your aid, and your high projects bless!
May that vile wretch, if any here there be,
That meanly shrinks from brave iniquity;
If any here feel pity or remorse,
May he feel all I've bid you act, and worse!
May he by rage of foes unpitied fall,
And they tread out his hated soul to hell.
May his name and carcass rot, exposed alike to be
The everlasting mark of grinning infamy.
- ↑ The Duke of Medina-Sidonia, who commanded the Spanish Armada in 1588.
- ↑ The Duke of Alva, employed by Philip of Spain in the Netherlands, and distinguished in history by his merciless wholesale massacres. He boasted that he had himself consigned 18,000 persons to the executioner. Amongst these were the two popular leaders Counts Egmont and Horn.
