Page:Poetical Works of John Oldham.djvu/194

184 Not so our great, good martyred king of late, (Could we his blessed example imitate,) Who, though the greatest of mortal sufferers, Yet kind to his rebellious murderers, Forgave, and blessed them with his dying prayers. Thus we, by sound divinity and sense, May purge our minds, and weed all errors thence; These lead us into right, nor shall we need Other than them through life to be our guide. Revenge is but a frailty, incident To crazed and sickly minds, the poor content Of little souls, unable to surmount An injury, too weak to bear affront; And this you may infer, because we find, 'Tis most in poor unthinking womankind, Who wreak their feeble spite on all they can, And are more kin to brute than braver man. But why should you imagine, sir, that those Escape unpunished, who still feel the throes And pangs of a racked soul, and (which is worse Than all the pains which can the body curse) The secret gnawings of unseen remorse? Believe't, they suffer greater punishment Than Rome's inquisitors could e'er invent; Nor all the tortures, racks, and cruelties, Which ancient persecutors could devise, Nor all, that Fox's bloody records tell, Can match what Bradshaw, and Ravaillac feel, Who in their breasts carry about their hell.