And three-piled darkness, like the smoky slough Of an imprisoned flame; 'tis Faux in grain; Dark lantern to our bright meridian. Hell belched the damp; the Warwick Castle vote Rang Britain's curfew, so our light went out. 60 [A black offender, should he wear his sin For penance, could not have a darker skin.] His visage is not legible; the letters Like a lord's name writ in fantastic fetters; Clothes where a Switzer might be buried quick; Sure they would fit the body politic; False beard enough to fit a stage's plot (For that 's the ambush of their wit, God wot), Nay, all his properties so strange appear, Y' are not i' th' presence though the King be there. 70 A libel is his dress, a garb uncouth, Such as the _Hue and Cry_ once purged at mouth. Scribbling assassinate! Thy lines attest An earmark due, Cub of the Blatant Beast; Whose breath, before 'tis syllabled for worse, Is blasphemy unfledged, a callow curse. The Laplanders, when they would sell a wind Wafting to hell, bag up thy phrase and bind It to the bark, which at the voyage end Shifts poop and breeds the colic in the Fiend. 80 But I'll not dub thee with a glorious scar Nor sink thy sculler with a man-of-war. The black-mouthed _Si quis_ and this slandering suit Both do alike in picture execute. But since w' are all called Papists, why not date Devotion to the rags thus consecrate? As temples use to have their porches wrought With sphinxes, creatures of an antic draught, And puzzling portraitures to show that there Riddles inhabited; the like is here. 90 But pardon, Sir, since I presume to be Clerk of this closet to your Majesty. Methinks in this your dark mysterious dress I see the Gospel couched in parables. At my next view my purblind fancy ripes And shows Religion in its dusky types; Such a text royal, so obscure a shade Was Solomon in Proverbs all arrayed. Come, all the brats of this expounding age To whom the spirit is in pupilage, 100 You that damn more than ever Samson slew, And with his engine, the same jaw-bone too! How is 't he 'scapes your inquisition free Since bound up in the Bible's livery? Hence, Cabinet-intruders! Pick-locks, hence! You, that dim jewels with your Bristol sense: And characters, like witches, so torment Till they confess a guilt though innocent! Keys for this coffer you can never get; None but St. Peter's opes this cabinet, 110 This cabinet, whose aspect would benight Critic spectators with redundant light. A Prince most seen is least. What Scriptures call The Revelation, is most mystical. Mount then, thou Shadow Royal, and with haste Advance thy morning-star, Charles, overcast. May thy strange journey contradictions twist And force fair weather from a Scottish mist.