HELI

False Mahomet! Thy Laws Monarchal are, Unjust, ambitious; full of spoil, and blood, Having, not of the best, but greatest, Care. Must life yield up it self to be put out, Before this frame of Nature be decayed? Must blood the tribute be of Tyrants doubt? Oh wretched Flesh! in which must be obeyed Gods law, that wills Impossibility; And Princes wills, the gulfs of Tyranny. We Priests, even with the mystery of words, First bind our selves, and with our selves the rest To servitude, the sheath of Tyrants sword; Each worst unto himself, approving best. People! Believe in God: we are untrue, And spiritual forges under Tyrants might: God only does command what's good for you: Where we do preach your bodies to the War; Your goods to Tax; your Freedom unto bans; Duties, by which you owned of others are; And Fear, which to your harms does lend your hands. Ah forlorn Wretch! with my hypocrisy, I Mustapha have ruined, and this State. I am the Evils friend, Hells Mediator, A Fury unto man, a man to Furies. If thou have felt the self-accusing War, Where knowledge is the endless hell of thought, The ruins of my Soul there figured are, For where despair the Conscience does fear My wounds bleed out that Horror which they bear. I have offended Nature, God, and Thee: To each a sin, to all impiety. Canst thou forgive? Rather avoid the cause Which else makes Mercy more severe than Laws. Thought is and act. Who can forgive remorse, Where Nature, by her own Law, suffers force? Preserve thy Father, with thy Self, and me: Else guilty of each others death we be. Thy Father purposes thy death: I did advise: Thou offerest up thy breath. That wicked Rossa thy step mother is. In that the Empire is for thee reserved. Of treason towards him they thee accuse: Thy Fame, and Greatness, gives their malice ground. No man commanded is by God to die, As long as he may Persecution fly. Mischief is Like the Cockatrices eyes; Sees first, and kills; or is seen first; and die. Fly to thy strength, which makes misfortune vain . Rossa intends thy ruin: What is she? Seek in her bowels for thy Father lost: Who can redeem a King with viler cost? Fatal Necessity is never known Untillit strike: and till that blow become, Who falls, is by false visions overthrown. Ah servile Men! how are your thoughts be witched With Hope's, and fears, the price of your subjection, That neither sense, nor time can make you see, The art of Power will leave you nothing free? We made them first for good, and not for ill. To worship Tyrants is no work of faith. Yet hazard something to preserve the State. To wound Powers humours, keeps their honours free. Force the petition is that never fails. Prosperity; that never makes offence. Could East upon the West else make invasion? The Tyrant only that event deceives. Weakness does ever think it owes too much. What is the world to him that is not there? Are Men no more? Are Kings anointed blood Profane to them, and sacred unto us? Plays Power with laws of God, and Nature thus? Shall sorrow write this story of oppression Only in idle tears, and not in blood? Where is Men zeal to God, his love to men? Shall that false Labyrinth of humane fear Keep Honour, and Revenge still captive there? No: let the spirit of Wrong stir up affection, By smart to make both men, and Tyrants know, There is in each, of each, the overthrow. Are hell, and heaven peopled out of us? Keep we the Keys of Conscience, and of Passion, And can no joust revenge in either fashion? Was ever change unwelcome unto man? Restless Mortality still hates the present: No one Rule please the Universal can. This Empires constitution Martial is, Where Hope's, and fears, must never be unbent: Anarchy is called for here by discontent. To Mustapha I know the world's affection; To Solyman fear only draws regard, And men stir easily where the rein is hard. Then l to them stir, and tear away this veil Of pride from Power; that our great Lord may see Unmiracled, his own Humanity. People! Look up above this Divans name; This rend of Error; snare of Liberty; Where punishment is Tyrants tax, and fame. Abolish these false Oracles of might, Courts subaltern, which bearing Tyrants seal, Oppress the People, and make vain, Appeal. Ruin these specious masks of Tyranny, These Crown-paid Caddies of their makers fashion; Which, Power-like, for Right distribute Passion. Confound Degrees, the Artifice of Thrones To bear down Nature; while they raise up Art With gilded Titles, to deceive the heart. The Church absolues you: Truth approves your work. Craft, and oppression every where God hates. Beside, where Order is not, Change is free, And gives all rights to Popularity.