This said, she paused a little, and suppress’d
  The boiling indignation of her breast. 
  She knew the virtue of her blade, nor would
  Pollute her satire with ignoble blood: 
  Her panting foe she saw before her eye,
  And back she drew the shining weapon dry. 
  So when the generous Lion has in sight
  His equal match, he rouses for the fight;
  But when his foe lies prostrate on the plain,
  He sheaths his paws, uncurls his angry mane, 270
  And, pleased with bloodless honours of the day,
  Walks over and disdains the inglorious prey. 
  So James, if great with less we may compare,
  Arrests his rolling thunderbolts in air! 
  And grants ungrateful friends a lengthen’d space,
  To implore the remnants of long-suffering grace.

    This breathing-time the matron took; and then
  Resumed the thread of her discourse again. 
  Be vengeance wholly left to powers divine,
  And let Heaven judge betwixt your sons and mine:  280
  If joys hereafter must be purchased here
  With loss of all that mortals hold so dear,
  Then welcome infamy and public shame,
  And, last, a long farewell to worldly fame. 
  ’Tis said with ease, but, oh, how hardly tried
  By haughty souls to human honour tied! 
  O sharp convulsive pangs of agonizing pride! 
  Down then, thou rebel, never more to rise,
  And what thou didst, and dost, so dearly prize,
  That fame, that darling fame, make that thy sacrifice. 290
  ’Tis nothing thou hast given, then add thy tears
  For a long race of unrepenting years: 
  ’Tis nothing yet, yet all thou hast to give: 
  Then add those may-be years thou hast to live: 
  Yet nothing still; then poor, and naked come: 
  Thy father will receive his unthrift home,
  And thy blest Saviour’s blood discharge the mighty sum.

    Thus (she pursued) I discipline a son,
  Whose uncheck’d fury to revenge would run: 
  He champs the bit, impatient of his loss, 300
  And starts aside, and flounders at the Cross. 
  Instruct him better, gracious God, to know,
  As thine is vengeance, so forgiveness too: 
  That, suffering from ill tongues, he bears no more
  Than what his sovereign bears, and what his Saviour bore.

   It now remains for you to school your child,
  And ask why God’s anointed he reviled;
  A king and princess dead! did Shimei worse? 
  The cursor’s punishment should fright the curse: 
  Your son was warn’d, and wisely gave it o’er, 310
  But he who counsell’d him has paid the score: 
  The heavy malice could no higher tend,
  But woe to him on whom the weights descend. 
  So to permitted ills the Demon flies;
  His rage is aim’d at him who rules the skies: 
  Constrain’d to quit his cause, no succour found,
  The foe discharges every tire around,
  In clouds of smoke abandoning the fight;
  But his own thundering peals proclaim his flight.