Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON HIS MAJESTY'S RECOVERY FROM THE SMALL-POX, 1633, by WILLIAM CARTWRIGHT



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ON HIS MAJESTY'S RECOVERY FROM THE SMALL-POX, 1633, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I do confess, the over-forward tongue
Last Line: That plac'd him on his throne; this makes him reign.
Subject(s): Small Pox


I do confess, the over-forward tongue
Of public duty turns into a wrong,
And after-ages, which could ne'er conceive
Our happy Charles so frail as to receive
Such a disease, will know it by the noise
Which we have made in shouting forth our joys.
And our informing duty only be
A well-meant spite, or loyal injury.
Let then the name be alter'd; let us say
They were small stars fix'd in a Milky-way,
Or faithful turquoises, which Heaven sent
For a discovery, not a punishment;
To show the ill, not make it; and to tell
By their pale looks the bearer was not well.
Let the disease forgotten be, but may
The joy return us yearly as the day;
Let there be new computes, let reckoning be
Solemnly made from his recovery;
Let not the Kingdom's Acts hereafter run
From his (though happy) Coronation,
But from his health, as in a better strain.
That plac'd him on his throne; this makes him reign.






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