Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/228

If, where I looked for something great and brave,
I meet with nothing but a fool or knave,
A traitor, villain, sycophant, or slave,
A freakish madman, fit to be confined,
Whom Bedlam only can to order bind,
Or, to speak all at once, a barren limb,
And rotten branch of an illustrious stem.
But I am too severe, perhaps you'll think,
And mix too much of satire with my ink;
We speak to men of birth and honour here,
And those nice subjects must be touched with care.
Cry mercy, sirs!Your race, we grant, is known:
But how far backwards can you trace it down?
You answer: For at least a thousand year,
And some odd hundreds, you can make't appear.
'Tis much.But yet, in short, the proofs are clear;
All books with your forefathers' titles shine,
Whose names have 'scaped the general wreck of time;
But who is there so bold, that dares engage
His honour, that, in this long tract of age,
No one of all his ancestors deceased
Had e'er the fate to find a bride unchaste?
That they have all along Lucretias been,
And nothing e'er of spurious blood crept in,
To mingle and defile the sacred line?
Cursed be the day, when first this vanity
Did primitive simplicity destroy,
In the blessed state of infant time, unknown,
When glory sprung from innocence alone;
Each from his merit only title drew,
And that alone made kings, and nobles too;
Then, scorning borrowed helps to prop his name,
The hero from himself derived his fame;
But merit, by degenerate time at last,
Saw vice ennobled, and herself debased;
And haughty pride false pompous titles feigned,
To amuse the world, and lord it o'er mankind.