Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edward Farr, ed. Select Poetry of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. 1845.

Stanzas from the Lepanto

I. King James I.

I SING a wondrous worke of God,

I sing his mercies great,

I sing his justice heere withall,

Powr’d from his holy seat.

To wit, a cruell martiall warre,

A bloodie battell bolde,

Long doubtsome fight, with slaughter huge,

And wounded manifold:

Which fought was in Lepantoe’s gulfe,

Betwixt the baptized race

And circumcised turband Turkes,

Rencountring in that place.

O onely God, I pray thee thrise,

Thrise one in persons three,

Alike eternall, like of might,

Although distinct yee be:

I pray thee, Father, through thy Sonne,

Thy Word immortall still,

The great archangell of records,

And worker, of thy will,

To make thy holie Spreit my muse,

And eik my pen inflame

Aboue my skill to write this worke,

To magnifie thy name.

Into the turning-still of times

I erre no time can be,

Whoe was, and is, and times to come,

Confounded are all three:

I meane before great God in heauen;

(For sunne and moone deuides

The times in earth by houres and dayes,

And seesons still that slides;)

Yet man, whom man must understand,

Must speake into this cace;

As man our flesh will not permit

Wee heauenlie things imbrace.

Then, as I els began to say,

One day it did fall out,

As glorious God in glistering throne,

With angells round about,

Did sit, and Christ at his right hand,

That craftie Satan came,

Deceauer, lyar, hating man,

And God’s most sacred name;

This olde abuser stood into

The presence of the Lord;

Then in this manner Christ accus’de

The sower of discord.

I know thou from that city comes,

Constantinople great,

Where thou hast by thy malice made

The faithles Turkes to freat;

Thou hast inflamde their maddest mindes

With raging fire of wraith

Against them all that doe professe

My name with feruent fayth.

How long, O Father, shall they thus

Quite vnder foote be tred

By faithles folkes, who executes

What in this snake is bred?

Then Satan answerd, Fayth, quoth he,

Their fayth is too, too small;

They striue, methinke, on either part

Who farthest backe can fall.

Hast thou not giuen them in my hands,

Euen boath the sides, I say,

That I, as best doth seeme to me,

May use them euery way?

Then Jehovah, whose nod doth make

The heauens and mountains quake,

Whose smallest wrath the centres makes

Of all the earth to shake;

Whose worde did make the world of nought,

And whose approoving syne

Did stablish all, even as wee see,

By force of voice deuine;

This God began from thundering throte

Graue wordes of waight to bring:

All Christians serue my Sonne, though not

Aright in everie thing.

No more shall now these Christians be

With infidels opprest;

So of my holie hallowed name

The force is great and blest.

Desist, O tempter! Gabriel, come,

O thou archangel true,

Whome I haue oft in message sent

To realmes and townes anew.

Go quicklie hence to Venice towne,

And put into their mindes

To take reuenge of wrongs the Turks

Haue done in sundrie kinds.

No whistling winde with such a speed

From hilles can hirle ore heugh,

As he whose thought doth furnish speed—

His thought was speed aneugh.