Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE LORD DERBY, by CHARLES COTTON


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ON THE LORD DERBY, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: To what a formidable greatness grown
Last Line: Cut your own throats, despair, and die, and damn.
Subject(s): Capital Punishment; Stanley, James. 7th Earl Of Derby; Hanging; Executions; Death Penalty


TO what a formidable greatness grown
Is this prodigious beast Rebellion,
When Sovereignty, and its so sacred law,
Thus lies subjected to his Tyrant awe!
And to what daring impudence he grows,
When, not content to trample upon those,
He still destroys all that with honest flames
Of loyal love would propagate their names!
In this great ruin, Derby, lay thy Fate,
(Derby, unfortunately fortunate)
Unhappy thus to fall a sacrifice
To such an irreligious power as this;
And blest, as 'twas thy nobler sense to die
A constant lover of thy loyalty.
Nor is it thy calamity alone,
Since more lie whelm'd in this subversion:
And first, the justest, and the best of Kings,
Rob'd in the glory of his sufferings,
By his too violent Fate inform'd us all,
What tragic ends attended his great fall,
Since when his subjects, some by chance of War,
Some by perverted justice at the Bar
Have perish't: thus, what th' other leaves, this takes,
And whoso scapes the sword, falls by the axe:
Amongst which throng of Martyrs none could boast
Of more fidelity, than the world has lost
In losing thee, when (in contempt of spite)
Thy steady faith at th' exit crown'd with light,
His head above their malice did advance,
They could not murder thy Allegiance,
Not when before those Judges brought to th' test,
Who, in the symptoms of thy ruin drest,
Pronounc't thy sentence. Basilisks! whose breath
Is killing poison, and whose looks are Death.
Then how unsafe a guard Man's virtue is,
In this false Age (when such as do amiss
Control the honest sort, and make a prey
Of all that are not villainous as they)
Does to our reason's eyes too plain appear
In the mischance of this illustrious Peer.
Bloodthirsty Tyrants of usurped State!
In facts of Death prompt, and insatiate!
That in your flinty bosoms have no sense
Of manly Honour, or of Conscience,
But do, since Monarchy lay drown'd in blood,
Proclaim 't by Act, high treason to be good;
Cease yet at last for shame: let Derby's fall,
Great, and good Derby's, expiate for all,
But if you will place your eternity
In mischief, and that all good men must die,
When you have finish't there, fall on the rest,
Mix your sham'd slaughters with the worst, and best;
And, to perpetuate your murthering fame,
Cut your own throats, despair, and die, and damn.





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