If pray'rs and tears,
The shields the Church of England only bears,
In some great exigence of State,
Could those have warded off the blow of Fate,
We had not fall'n, we had not sunk so low
Under the grievous heavy weight,
The pressures of this day's sad overthrow.
Oh! how the first amazing blow
Bow'd down each loyal head!
And as we trembling stood,
Fix'd like a standing water all our blood,
In every face you might such sorrows read;
That what the prophet wish'd but could not show,
Was in our mournful land made good;
All eyes, as rivers, swell'd, did strangely overflow,
Our weepings seem'd increas'd into another flood.
Thus universal was our grief,
And in those agonies of our soul we lay,
Till the kind heav'ns roll'd the cloud away,
And gave us some faint glimm'rings of relief.
The waters then abated for a while,
And welcome joys hung hov'ring o'er our drooping Isle.
Oh! then what pious groans, what pious sighs
The Church sent up beyond the yielding skies.
"Lord save our King!" ev'ry good subject cries,
Whilst ev'ry broken heart's altar and sacrifice.
"Lord save the King!" was never said with greater fervency than now,
Not in the chapel only, but the streets;
No sort of people could you meet but did devoutly bow,
And as devoutly pray'd;
And yet no pharisaic hypocrites
In corners, with well-guided zeal, their orisons were made.
Albion is now become a holy land,
And wages holy war to stay the threat'ning hand;
Oh! that we might prevail!
Such well appointed numbers never us'd to fail.
Numbers of old, by a wise prelate led,
With arms stretch'd towr'ds heav'n took the field,
No other weapons did those champions wield,
But leafy boughs (and pray'rs, no doubt) we read,
To those a mighty conqueror did yield,
Alas! we'd conquer'd too, but for our former crimes,
Treasons, rebellions, perjuries,
With all the iniquities of the times;
Whole legions do against us rise,
These by the powers that strike the kingdom dead,
And now the crown is fall'n from our Josiah's head.