Page:Tixall Poetry.djvu/263

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Tixall Poetry.
209
II.
Now, let the reasonable beast, call'd man;
  Let those, who never truly scan
    The effects of sacred Providence,
But measure all by the grosse rules of sence;
Let those look up and steer their sight,
    By the great Stafford's light.
The God that suffered him to suffer here,
Rewards his race, and blesses them below,
Their father's innocence and truth to show;
To show he holds the blood of martyrs dear:
He crowned the father with a deathless diadem;
  And all the days from him he took,
He numbred out in his eternal book:
And said, let these be safely kept for them,
The long descendants of that hallow'd stem.
  To drye the mournfull widow's tears,
  Let all those dayes be turn'd to years,
   And all those years be whiten'd too:
  Still some new blessing let 'em bring,
To those who from my martyr spring;

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