The Dominion of the Sword

A song made in the Rebellion.

From the Loyal Garland, 1686.
To the tune of “Love lies a bleeding.”

   Lay by your pleading,
   Law lies a bleeding;
Burn all your studies down, and
   Throw away your reading.

   Small pow’r the word has,
   And can afford us
Not half so much privilege as
   The sword does.

   It fosters your masters,
   It plaisters disasters,
It makes the servants quickly greater
   Than their masters.

   It venters, it enters,
   It seeks and it centers,
It makes a’prentice free in spite
   Of his indentures.

   It talks of small things,
   But it sets up all things;
This masters money, though money
   Masters all things.

   It is not season
   To talk of reason,
Nor call it loyalty, when the sword
   Will have it treason.

   It conquers the crown, too,
   The grave and the gown, too,
First it sets up a presbyter, and
   Then it pulls him down too.

   This subtle disaster
   Turns bonnet to beaver;
Down goes a bishop, sirs, and up
   Starts a weaver.

   This makes a layman
   To preach and to pray, man;
And makes a lord of him that
   Was but a drayman.

   Far from the gulpit
   Of Saxby’s pulpit,
This brought an Hebrew ironmonger
   To the pulpit.

   Such pitiful things be
   More happy than kings be;
They get the upper hand of Thimblebee
   And Slingsbee.

   No gospel can guide it,
   No law can decide it,
In Church or State, till the sword
   Has sanctified it.

   Down goes your law-tricks,
   Far from the matricks,
Sprung up holy Hewson’s power,
   And pull’d down St Patrick’s.

   This sword it prevails, too,
   So highly in Wales, too,
Shenkin ap Powel swears
   “Cots-splutterer nails, too.”

   In Scotland this faster
   Did make such disaster,
That they sent their money back
   For which they sold their master.

   It batter’d their Gunkirk,
   And so it did their Spainkirk,
That he is fled, and swears the devil
   Is in Dunkirk.

   He that can tower,
   Or he that is lower,
Would be judged a fool to put
   Away his power.

   Take books and rent ’em,
   Who can invent ’em,
When that the sword replies,
   Negatur argumentum.

   Your brave college-butlers
   Must stoop to the sutlers;
There’s ne’er a library
   Like to the cutlers’.

   The blood that was spilt, sir,
   Hath gain’d all the gilt, sir;
Thus have you seen me run my
   Sword up to the hilt, sir.