After Cromwell’s Republic, King Charles returns to Great Britain a king. But his successor James II’s attempts at going back to Catholicism and ignoring Parliament calls for yet another revolution : but this time around, it’s not Bloody. It’s the Glorious Revolution, paving the way for the Augustan Age.

Father of all! in every age,

    In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, and by sage,

    Jehovah, Jove, or Lord!

Thou Great First Cause, least understood:

    Who all my sense confined

To know but this—that thou art good,

    And that myself am blind:

Yet gave me, in this dark estate,

    To see the good from ill;

And binding Nature fast in fate,

    Left free the human will.

O King of terrors, whose unbounded sway

All that have life must certainly obey;

The King, the Priest, the Prophet, all are thine,

Nor would ev’n God (in flesh) thy stroke decline.

My name is on thy roll, and sure I must

Increase thy gloomy kingdom in the dust.

My soul at this no apprehension feels,

But trembles at thy swords, thy racks, thy wheels;

Thy scorching fevers, which distract the sense,

And snatch us raving, unprepared, from hence;

At thy contagious darts, that wound the heads

Of weeping friends, who wait at dying beds.

Spare these, and let thy time be when it will;

My bus’ness is to die, and thine to kill.

Gently thy fatal scepter on me lay,

And take to thy cold arms, insensibly, thy prey.

     Stella this Day is thirty four,

(We won’t dispute a Year or more)

However Stella, be not troubled,

Although thy Size and Years are doubled,

Since first I saw Thee at Sixteen

The brightest Virgin of the Green,

So little is thy Form declin’d

Made up so largely in thy Mind.

Oh, would it please the Gods to split

Thy Beauty, Size, and Years, and Wit,

No Age could furnish out a Pair

Of Nymphs so gracefull, Wise and fair

With half the Lustre of Your Eyes,

With half thy Wit, thy Years and Size:

And then before it grew too late,

How should I beg of gentle Fate,

(That either Nymph might have her Swain,)

To split my Worship too in twain.