THE DISTRACTED PURITANE.

Aм I madd, O noble Festus,

When zeale and godly knowledge

Have put me in hope

To deal with the pope,

As well as the best in the colledge? Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice, Mitres, copes, and rotchets :

Come heare me pray nine times a day,

And fill your heads with crotchets.

In the house of pure Emanuel
I had my education;

Where my friends surmise

I dazeled mine eyes

With the light of revelation.

Boldly I preach, &c.

They bound me like a bedlam,

They lash't my foure poore quarters;

Whilst this I endure,

Faith makes me sure

To be one of Foxe's martyrs,

Boldly I preach, &c.

These injuryes I suffer

Through Anti-Christ's perswasions :

Take off this chaine,

Neither Rome nor Spaine

Can resist my strong invasions.

Boldly I preach, &c.

Of the beast's ten hornes (God blesse us!)

I have knockt off three already :

If they let me alone,

I'll leave him none;

But they say I am too heady. Boldly I preach, &c.

When I sack'd the seven-hill'd citty
I mett the great redd dragon:

I kept him aloofe

With the armour of proofe,

Though here I have never a rag on.

Boldly I preach, &c.

With a fiery sword and targett
There fought I with this monster:
But the sonnes of pride

My zeale deride,

And all my deedes misconster.

Boldly I preach, &c.

I unhorst the whore of Babel
With a launce of inspirations:
I made her stinke,

And spill her drinck

In the cupp of abominations.

Boldly I preach, &c.

I have seene two in a vision,
With a flying booke betweene them:
I have bin in dispaire

Five times a yeare,

And cur'd by reading Greenham.

Boldly I preach, &c.

I observ'd in Perkin's Tables*
The black lines of damnation :
Those crooked veines

Soe struck in my braines,
That I fear'd my reprobation.
Boldly I preach, &c.

In the holy tongue of Chanaan
I plac'd my chiefest pleasure:
Till I prickt my foote

With an Hebrew roote,

That I bledd beyond all measure.

Boldly I preach, &c.

I appear'd before the arch-bishopp,
And all the high commission:
I gave him noe grace,

But told him to his face

That he favour'd superstition.

Boldly I preach, hate a crosse, hate a surplice,
Mitres, copes, and rotchets :

Come heare me pray nine times a day,
And fill your heads with crotchets.

* An eminent divine of Cambridge. C.