Not that I think those pantomimes,
Who vary action with the times,
Are less ingenious in their art,
Than those who dully act one part; 1290
Or those who turn from side to side,
More guilty than the wind and tide. 
All countries are a wise man’s home,
And so are governments to some,
Who change them for the same intrigues 1295
That statesmen use in breaking leagues;
While others, in old faiths and troths,
Look odd as out-of-fashion’d cloths;
And nastier in an old opinion,
Than those who never shift their linnen. 1300

For true and faithful’s sure to lose,
Which way soever the game goes;
And whether parties lose or win,
Is always nick’d, or else hedg’d in: 
While pow’r usurp’d, like stol’n delight, 1305
Is more bewitching than the right;
And when the times begin to alter,
None rise so high as from the halter.

And so may we, if w’ have but sense
To use the necessary means; 1310
And not your usual stratagems
On one another, Lights and Dreams
To stand on terms as positive,
As if we did not take, but give: 
Set up the Covenant on crutches, 1315
’Gainst those who have us in their clutches,
And dream of pulling churches down,
Before w’ are sure to prop our own: 
Your constant method of proceeding,
Without the carnal mans of heeding; 1320
Who ’twixt your inward sense and outward,
Are worse, than if y’ had none, accoutred. 
I grant, all courses are in vain,
Unless we can get in again;
The only way that’s left us now; 1325
But all the difficulty’s, How? 
‘Tis true, w’ have money, th’ only pow ’r
That all mankind falls down before;
Money, that, like the swords of kings,
Is the last reason of all things; 1330
And therefore need not doubt our play
Has all advantages that way;
As long as men have faith to sell,
And meet with those that can pay well;
Whose half-starv’d pride, and avarice, 1335
One Church and State will not suffice
T’ expose to sale, beside the wages
Of storing plagues to after-ages. 
Nor is our money less our own,
Than ’twas before we laid it down; 1340
For ‘twill return, and turn t’ account,
If we are brought, in play upon’t: 
Or but, by casting knaves, get in,
What pow ’r can hinder us to win? 
We know the arts we us’d before, 1345
In peace and war, and something more;
And by th’ unfortunate events,
Can mend our next experiments: 
For when w’ are taken into trust,
How easy are the wisest choust? 1350
Who see but th’ outsides of our feats,
And not their secret springs and weights;