Page:Poets of John Company.djvu/36

So they stripped off her robe; but the loss to atone.
His Majesty gave her a cloak of his own;
Lent her armies and fleets for protectors;
To diminish her cares, and to lighten their weight,
For her guardians appointed the Lords of the State,
And a Board to direct her Directors.

Thus equipp'd, and embrac'd by the beams of the throne.
As once Semele, wrapp'd in Jove's attributes, shone,
Now as meek and resigned as a martyr.
With the guilt of imputed offences defil'd,
By rapacity pilfer'd, by malice revil'd.
She gave up the ghost, and her charter.

Though ignoble her birth, yet in death she may boast
That her orb in the colours of glory was lost.
Like the sun, when he sets in Orion;
This reflection of comfort at least to produce—
That her greatness arose from the quill of a goose,
And was crush'd by the paw of a lion.