[Line: 120 'T' interpret an' _1647_ (pamphlet): 'To interpret an' _1647_ (Poems) _1653_, _1677_. _1651_ omits 'To' and reads the 'an' which seems bad in metre and meaning alike.] The Rebel Scot. How, Providence? and yet a Scottish crew? Then Madam Nature wears black patches too! What? shall our nation be in bondage thus Unto a land that truckles under us? Ring the bells backward! I am all on fire. Not all the buckets in a country quire Shall quench my rage. A poet should be feared, When angry, like a comet's flaming beard. And where 's the stoic can his wrath appease, To see his country sick of Pym's disease? 10 By Scotch invasion to be made a prey To such pigwiggin myrmidons as they? But that there 's charm in verse, I would not quote The name of Scot without an antidote; Unless my head were red, that I might brew Invention there that might be poison too. Were I a drowsy judge whose dismal note Disgorgeth halters as a juggler's throat Doth ribbons; could I in Sir Emp'ric's tone Speak pills in phrase and quack destruction; 20 Or roar like Marshall, that Geneva bull, Hell and damnation a pulpit full; Yet to express a Scot, to play that prize, Not all those mouth-grenadoes can suffice. Before a Scot can properly be curst, I must like Hocus swallow daggers first. Come, keen iambics, with your badger's feet And badger-like bite till your teeth do meet. Help, ye tart satirists, to imp my rage With all the scorpions that should whip this age. 30 Scots are like witches; do but whet your pen, Scratch till the blood come, they'll not hurt you then. Now, as the martyrs were enforced to take The shapes of beasts, like hypocrites, at stake, I'll bait my Scot so, yet not cheat your eyes; A Scot within a beast is no disguise. No more let Ireland brag her harmless nation Fosters no venom since the Scot's plantation: Nor can ours feigned antiquity maintain; Since they came in, England hath wolves again. 40 The Scot that kept the Tower might have shown, Within the grate of his own breast alone, The leopard and the panther, and engrossed What all those wild collegiates had cost The honest high-shoes in their termly fees; First to the salvage lawyer, next to these. Nature herself doth Scotchmen beasts confess, Making their country such a wilderness: A land that brings in question and suspense God's omnipresence, but that Charles came thence, 50 But that Montrose and Crawford's loyal band Atoned their sins and christ'ned half the land. Nor is it all the nation hath these spots; There is a Church as well as Kirk of Scots. As in a picture where the squinting paint Shows fiend on this side, and on that side saint. He, that saw Hell in 's melancholy dream And in the twilight of his fancy's theme,