Contents -Volume INDEX -AUTHOR INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889

Six Hobnails

By Nathaniel Ward (1578–1652)

I PRAY let me drive in half a dozen plain honest Country Hobnails, such as the Martyrs were wont to wear; to make my work hold the surer; and I have done.

THERE lives cannot be good,

There, faith cannot be sure,

Where truth cannot be quiet,

Nor ordinances pure.

No King can king it right,

Nor rightly sway his rod;

Who truly loves not Christ,

And truly fears not God.

He can not rule a land,

As lands should ruled been,

That lets himself be rul’d

By a ruling Roman Queen.

No earthly man can be

True subject to this State;

Who makes the Pope his Christ,

An heretic his mate.

There Peace will go to War,

And Silence make a noise:

Where upper things will not

With nether equipoise.

The upper World shall rule,

While Stars will run their race:

The nether World obey,

While people keep their place.

If any of these come out

So long ’s the World do last

Then credit not a word

Of what is said and past.