So grows the sapling oak, ’midst woods profound, And gathers strength from storms which beat around: At length matur’d, a nation’s pride, in war It guards the realm, and spreads its fame afar. IRETON! yet lives there one, in this base age, Whose heart thy manly virtues can engage, To love and rev’rence; as he greets the blow, By which thou laid’st the treach’rous STUART low:(3) Whilst hordes of slaves look’d on, with wond’ring awe, And kings were taught obedience to law. And still, in Charles’s blood, the lesson lives, Which teaches them ’tis Public _Will_ that gives Alone the right to rule; and fixes sway On _subjects’ love_, and _interest to obey_; Not “right divine,” that charm, by Priestcraft spread Round guilty thrones, to save th’ anointed head From public vengeance; when its crimes no more An outrag’d suff’ring people will endure. IRETON, enfranchis’d England truly owes, With all mankind, much of the bliss that grows From rights secur’d, and privilege defin’d, And pow’r control’d, to thy exalted mind.(4) More had it ow’d, but, that mysterious heaven, In all things just, deem’d that enough was given To teach mankind, too long abas’d, to prize What in religion,--what in freedom lies; So, to itself, recall’d thy soul, whose ray Had been the patriot’s guide through many a day Of doubtful strife,--in many a troublous hour Had chas’d his gloom, and cheer’d him by its pow’r. Long hadst thou, IRETON, borne, ’midst toils and blood The holy ark of Freedom;--long hadst stood Thy Country’s hope;--lent vigour to her arms, Light to her councils;--in her wild alarms Been her high rock;--her strong pavilion, where The brave took courage, and the weak lost fear; Ere heaven, on sudden, quench’d in the dread tomb Thy glorious light; and left the land in gloom. As the proud steed, impatient of the reins, Frets at the hand whose pow’r his rage restrains, And, if he breaks the curb, will fiercer run The dang’rous path his rider sought to shun; Or if by shock severe he quits his seat, The foaming courser darts on ruin fleet; Leaves the plain track,--leaps fences yet untried, And braves some mound, in insolence of pride, At which he falls: so, Cromwell,(5) when the voice No more was heard, which once controll’d his choice: When IRETON, stern and rigid, in the cause Of pure religion, equal rights and laws, Remain’d no longer to abash the pride Which sought, with bold ambition, to bestride The prostrate strength of a great realm, whose blood Had stream’d for Freedom as a copious flood: Leap’d, madly o’er each guard which had secur’d The dear-bought rights: and, in his fall, ensur’d The ruin of that cause, so nobly won, And left his country, and mankind, undone. Darkness too soon o’erspread the land again,