Tell me, my Muse! what monstrous dire offence, 117 What crime could any Christian king incense To such a rage? Was't luxury, or lust? Was he so temperate, so chaste, so just? Were these their crimes? They were his own much more; But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor, Who having spent the treasures of his crown, Condemns their luxury to feed his own. And yet this act, to varnish o'er the shame Of sacrilege, must bear devotion's name. No crime so bold, but would be understood A real, or at least a seeming good: Who fears not to do ill, yet fears the name, And, free from conscience, is a slave to fame. 130 Thus he the church at once protects, and spoils: But princes' swords are sharper than their styles; And thus to th'ages past he makes amends, Their charity destroys, their faith defends. Then did Religion in a lazy cell, In empty, airy contemplations dwell; And like the block, unmovèd lay; but ours, As much too active, like the stork devours. Is there no temp'rate region can be known, Betwixt their frigid, and our torrid zone? 140 Could we not wake from that lethargic dream, But to be restless in a worse extreme? And for that lethargy was there no cure, But to be cast into a calenture? Can knowledge have no bound, but must advance So far, to make us wish for ignorance, And rather in the dark to grope our way, Than, led by a false guide, to err by day? Who sees these dismal heaps, but would demand What barbarous invader sack'd the land? 150 But when he hears no Goth, no Turk did bring This desolation, but a Christian king; When nothing but the name of zeal appears 'Twixt our best actions and the worst of theirs, What does he think our sacrilege would spare, When such th'effects of our devotions are? Parting from thence 'twixt anger, shame and fear, Those for what's past, and this for what's too near, My eye descending from the hill, surveys Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays. 160 Thames, the most loved of all the Ocean's sons By his old sire, to his embraces runs; Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea, Like mortal life to meet eternity. Though with those streams he no resemblance hold, Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold, His genuine and less guilty wealth t'explore, Search not his bottom, but survey his shore, O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing, And hatches plenty for th'ensuing spring; 170 Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay, Like mothers which their infants overlay; Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave, Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave. No unexpected inundations spoil The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil: But godlike his unwearied bounty flows; First loves to do, then loves the good he does. Nor are his blessings to his banks confined, But free and common as the sea or wind; 180