CAMAENA

Nay, Reverence, Sir! So Children's worth does hide, As of the Father's it is least espied. How so my Lord? Since Love in Knowledge lives, Which unto strangers therefore no man gives. The tenderness of life it is so great, As any sign of death we hate too much And unto Parents Sons, perchance, are such. Yet Nature meant her strongest unity, Betwixt Sons, and Father's; making Parents cause Unto the Sons, of their humanity; And Children pledge of their eternity. Father's should love this Image in their Sons. Pardon my Lord! Doubt is Successions foe: Let not her mists poor Children overthrow. Though streams from springs do see me to run away, ' 'Tis Nature leads them to their Mother Sea. Things easy, to desire impossible do seem: Why should fear make impossible seem easy? Incredible hath some inordinate progression: Blood, Doctrine, Age, corrupting Liberty, Do all concur, where men such monsters be. Pardon me Sir! if Duty do seem angry: Affection must breathe out afflicted breath, Where imputation hath such easy faith. Fallen none but Angels suddenly to hell? Are Kind, and Order grown precipitate? Did ever any other man, but he, In instant loose the use of doing well? Sir! these be mists of Greatness. Look again: For Kings, that, in their fearful icy State, Behold their children, as their winding sheet, Do easily doubt; and what they doubt, they hate. Sir! Pardon me: and nobly as a Father, What I shall say, and say of holy Mother, Know I shall say it, but to right a Brother. My Mother is your Wife: Duty in her Is love: She loves; which not well governed, bears The evil Angel of misgiving Fears; Whose many eyes, while but it self they see, Still make the worst of possibility: Out of this Fear she Mustapha accuseth: Unto this Fear, perchance, she joins the Love, Which does in Mother's, for their Children move. Perchance, when Fear hath showed her yours must all, In Love she sees that hers must rise withal. Sir! Fear a frailty is, and may have grace, And overcare of you cannot be blamed; Care of our own in Nature hath a place; Passion are oft mistaken, and misnamed; Things simply good grow evil with misplacing. Though laws cut off, and do not care to fashion, Humanity of error hath compassion. Yet God forbid, that either Fear, or Care, Should ruin those that true, and faultless are, Is it a fault, or fault for you to know, My Mother doubts a thing that is not so? These ugly works of monstrous Parricide, Mark from what hearts they rise, and where they bide. Violent, despaired, where honour broken is; Fear lord; Time Death; where Hope is Misery; Doubt having stopped all honest ways to bliss, And Custom shut the windows up of shame, That Craft may take upon her Wisdoms name. Compare now Mustapha with this despair: Sweet Youth, sure Hope's, Honour, a Father's love, No infamy to move, or banish fear, Honour to stay, hazard to hasten fate: Can horrors work in such a Child's estate? Beside, the Gods, whom Kings should imitate, Have placed you high to rule, not overthrow; For us, not for your selves, is your Estate: Mercy must hand in hand with Power go. Your Sceptre should not strike with arms of fear, Which fathoms all men's imbecility, And Mischief does, left it should mischief bear. As reason deals within with frailty, Which kills not passion that rebellious are, But adds, substracts, keeps down ambitious spirits; So must Power form, not ruin instruments: For flesh and blood, the means betwixt heaven, and hell, Unto extremes extremely racked be; Which Kings in Art of Government should see. Else they, which circle in themselves with death, Poison the air, wherein they draw their breath. Pardon my Lord! Pity becomes my Sex: Grace with delay grows weak, and fury wise. Remember Theseus wish, and Neptune's haste. Killed Innocence, and left Succession waste. Where Love despairs, and where Gods promise ends. For Mercy is the highest reach of wit, A safety unto them that save with it: Born out of God, and unto humane eyes, Like God, not seen, till fleshly passion die. While he is yet alive, he may be slain; But from the dead no flesh comes back again. Though he were dead, that doubt still living were. The same occasion follows every Son. And shall the best be slain, for being such? My Mother, if she errres, erres virtuously; And let her err, ere Mustapha should die. Kings, for their safety, must not blame mistrust; Nor, for surmises, sacrifice the joust. They that from youth do suck at For tunes breast, And nurse their empty hearts with seeking higher, " Like Dropsie-fedde, their thirst does never rest; " For still, by getting, they beget desire: " Till thoughts, Like Wood, while they maintain the Flame " Oh high desires, grow Ashes in the same. " But Virtue! Those that can behold thy beauty's, " Those that suck, from their youth, thy milk of Good ness, " Their minds grow strong against the storms of fortune, " And stand, Like rocks, in Winter gusts unshaken; " Not with the blindness of desire mistaken. Oh Virtue therefore! whose thrall I think fortune, Thou who despisest not the sex of Women, Help me out of these Riddles of my fortune, Wherein (methinks) you with your self do pose me: Let Fates go on: sweet Virtue! do not loose me. My Mother, and my Husband have conspired, For Brother's good, the ruin of my Brother: My Father by my Mother is inspired, For one child to seek ruin of another. I that to help by Nature am required, While I do help, must needs still hurt a Brother. While I see who conspire, I seem conspired Against a Husband, Father, and a Mother, Truth bids me run, by Truth I am retired; Shame leads me both the one way, and the other. In what a Labyrinth is Honour cast, Drawn diverse ways with Sex, with Time, with State? In all which, Errors course is infinite, By hope, by fear, by spite, by love, and hate; And but one only way unto the right. A thorny way: where Pain must be the guide; Danger the light; Offence of Power the praise: Such are the golden Hope's of Iron days. Yet Virtue, I am thine, for thy sake grieved ( Since basest thoughts, for their ill-placed desires, In shame, in danger, death, and torment glory) That I cannot with more pains write thy story. Chance therefore! if thou scornest those that scorn thee; Fame! if thou hatest those that force thy Trumpet To found aloud, and yet despise thy sounding; Laws! if you love not those that be examples Of Nature's laws, whence you are fallen corrupted; Conspire that I, against you all conspired, Joined with Tyrant Virtue, as you call her, That I, by your revenges may be nam, For Virtue, to be ruined, and defamed, My mother oft, and diversely I warned, What Fortune's were upon such courses built: That fortune still must be with ill maintained, Which at the first with any ill is gained. I Rosten warned, that men self-loving thought Still creeps to the rude embracing might Of Princes grace: a Lease of glories let, Which shining burns; breeds Serens when it's set. And, by this creature of my mother's making, This messenger, I Mustapha have warned, That Innocence is not enough to save, Where Good, and Greatness, Fear, and Envy have. Till now, in reverence I have forborn To ask, or to presume to guess, or know My Father's thoughts; where of he might think scorn: For dreadful is that Power that all may do; Yet they, that all men fear, are fearful too. Lo where he sits! Virtue! work thou in me, That what thou seekest may accomplished be. My Lord! Meethought, nay, sure I saw you but sie: Your Child presumest, uncalled, that comes unto you.