Charles the Second

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

(Born May 29, 1630)

WHO comes—with rapture greeted, and caressed

With frantic love—his kingdom to regain

Him Virtue’s Nurse, Adversity, in vain

Received, and fostered in her iron breast;

For all she taught of hardiest and of best,

Or would have taught, by discipline of pain

And long privation, now dissolves amain,

Or is remembered only to give zest

To wantonness.—Away, Circean revels!

But for what gain? if England soon must sink

Into a gulf which all distinction levels—

That bigotry may swallow the good name,

And, with that draught, the life-blood: misery, shame,

By Poets loathed; from which Historians shrink!