At length resolv'd t' assert the watery ball,
He in himself did whole armadoes bring:
Him aged seamen might their master call,
And choose for general, were he not their king.

It seems as every ship their sovereign knows,
His awful summons they so soon obey;
So hear the scaly herd when Proteus blows,
And so to pasture follow through the sea.

To see this fleet upon the ocean move,
Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies;
And Heaven, as if there wanted lights above,
For tapers made two glaring comets rise.

Whether they unctuous exhalations are,

Fir'd by the Sun, or seeming so alone;
Or each some more remote and slippery star,
Which loses footing when to mortals shown:

Or one, that bright companion of the Sun,
Whose glorious aspect seal'd our new-born king;
And now, a round of greater years begun,

New influence from his walks of light did bring.

Victorious York did first with fam'd success,

To his known valour make the Dutch give place: Thus Heaven our monarch's fortune did confess, Beginning conquest from his royal race.

But since it was decreed, auspicious king,

In Britain's right that thou shouldst wed the main, Heaven, as a gage, would cast some precious thing, And therefore doom'd that Lawson should be slain.

Lawson amongst the foremost met his fate,

Whom sea-green Sirens from the rocks lament: Thus as an offering for the Grecian state,

He first was kill'd who first to battle went.

Their chief blown up in air, not waves, expir'd, To which his pride presum'd to give the law: The Dutch confess'd Heaven present, and retir'd, And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.

To nearest ports their shatter'd ships repair, Where by our dreadful cannon they lay aw'd: So reverently men quit the open air,

When thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

And now approach'd their fleet from India fraught,
With all the riches of the rising Sun:
And precious sand from southern climates brought,
The fatal regions where the war begun.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,

Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring:

There first the North's cold bosom spices bore,
And Winter brooded on the eastern Spring.

By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey,
Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie:
And round about their murdering cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eye.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard, The English undertake th' unequal war: Seven ships alone, by which the port is barr'd, Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those:
These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy:
And to such height their frantic passion grows,
That what both love, both hazard to destroy.

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,

And now their odours arm'd against them fly: Some preciously by shatter'd porcelain fall, And some by aromatic splinters die.

And though by tempests of the prize bereft, In Heaven's inclemency some ease we find: Our foes we vanquish'd by our valour left, And only yielded to the seas and wind.

Nor wholly lost we so deserv'd a prey;

For storms, repenting, part of it restor❜d: Which, as a tribute from the Baltic sea,

The British ocean sent her mighty lord.

Go, mortals, now and vex yourselves in vain

For wealth, which so uncertainly must come: When what was brought so far, and with such pain, Was only kept to lose it nearer home.

The son, who twice three months on th' ocean tost,
Prepar'd to tell what he had pass'd before,
Now sees in English ships the Holland coast,
And parents' arms, in vain,stretch'd from the shore.
This careful husband had been long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn:
Who on their fingers learn'd to tell the day
On which their father promis'd to return.

Such are the proud designs of human-kind,
And so we suffer shipwreck every where!
Alas, what port can such a pilot find,

Who in the night of Fate must blindly steer!

The undistinguish'd seeds of good and ill,
Heaven in his bosom from our knowledge hides:
And draws them in contempt of human skill,
Which oft for friends mistaken foes provides.

Let Munster's prelate ever be accurst,

In whom we seek the German faith in vain : Alas, that he should teach the English first, That fraud and avarice in the church could reign!

Happy, who never trust a stranger's will,
Whose friendship 's in his interest understood!
Since money given but tempts him to be ill,
When power is too remote to make him good.

Till now, alone the mighty nations strove;

The rest, at gaze, without the lists did stand; And threatening France, plac'd like a painted Jove,

Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

That eunuch guardian of rich Holland's trade, Who envies us what he wants power t' enjoy; Whose noiseful valour does no foe invade,

And weak assistance will his friends destroy..

Offended that we fought without his leave,
He takes this time his secret hate to show:
Which Charles does with a mind so calm receive,
As one that neither seeks nor shuns his foe.

Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night; Now hissing waters the quench'd guns restore; And weary waves withdrawing from the fight,

Lie lull'd and panting on the silent shore.

The Moon shone clear on the becalmed flood, Where, while her beams like glittering silver play, Upon the deck our careful general stood,

And deeply mus'd on the succeeding day.

"That happy Sun," said he, " will rise again,
Who twice victorious did our navy see:
And I alone must view him rise in vain,
Without one ray of all his star for me.

"Yet, like an English general will I die,

And all the ocean make my spacious grave: Women and cowards on the land may lie; The sea's a tomb that 's proper for the brave."

Restless he pass'd the remnant of the night,

Till the fresh air proclaim'd the morning nigh:
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.

But now, his stores of ammunition spent,
His naked valour is his only guard :
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon sent,
And solitary guns are scarcely heard.

Thus far had Fortune power, he forc'd to stay,
Nor longer durst with Virtue be at strife:
This is a ransom Albemarle did pay,

For all the glories of so great a life.

For now brave Rupert from afar appears,
Whose waving streamers the glad general knows:
With full-spread sails his eager navy steers,

And every ship in swift proportion grows.

The anxious prince had heard the cannon long, And from that length of time dire omens drew Of English overmatch'd, and Dutch too strong, Who never fought three days, but to pursue.

Then, as an eagle, who with pious care

Was beating widely on the wing for prey, To her now silent eiry does repair,

And finds her callow infants forc'd away:

Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whistling as she flies:
She stops and listens, and shoots forth again,
And guides her pinions by her young ones' cries.

With such kind passion hastes the prince to fight, And spreads his flying canvass to the sound: Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright, New absent every little noise can wound.

As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry,
And gape upon the gather'd clouds for rain;
And first the martlet meets it in the sky,
And with wet wings joys all the feather'd train:

With such glad hearts did our despairing men Salute th' appearance of the prince's fleet; And each ambitiously would claim the ken,

That with first eyes did distant safety meet.

The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before, To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield, Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar, And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.

Full in the prince's passage, hills of sand,

And dangerous flats in secret ambush lay, Where the false tides skim o'er the cover'd land, And seamen with dissembled depths betray.

The wily Dutch, who like fall'n angels fear'd
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,
And round the verge their braving vessels steer'd,
To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.

But he unmov'd contemns their idle threat,
Secure of fame whene'er he please to fight:
His cold experience tempers all his heat,
And inbred worth doth boasting valour slight.

Heroic virtue did his actions guide,

And he the substance, not th' appearance, chose: To rescue one such friend, he took more pride, Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes.

But when approach'd, in strict embraces bound,
Rupert and Albemarle together grow:
He joys to have his friend in safety found,
Which he to none but to that friend would owe.

The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supply'd,
Now long to execute their spleenful will ;
And, in revenge for those three days they try'd,
Wish one, like Joshua's, when the Sun stood still.

Thus reinforc'd, against the adverse fleet,

Still doubling ours, brave Rupert leads the way: With the first blushes of the morn they meet, And bring night back upon the new-born day.

His presence soon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns speak thick like angry men:
It seem'd as slaughter had been breath'd all night,
And Death new pointed his dull dart again.

The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,

And matchless courage, since the former fight: Whose navy like a stiff-stretch'd cord did shew, Till he bore in and bent them into flight.

The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends His open side, and high above him shows: Upon the rest at pleasure he descends,

And doubly harm'd he double harms bestows.

Behind the general mends his weary pace,
And sullenly to his revenge he sails :
So glides some trodden serpent on the grass,
And long behind his wounded volume trails.

Th' increasing sound is borne to either shore, And for their stakes the throwing nations fear: Their passions double with the cannons' roar,

And with warm wishes each man combats there.

Ply'd thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away:
So sicken waneing Moons too near the Sun,
And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.

And now reduc'd on equal terms to fight,

Their ships like wasted patrimonies show; Where the thin scattering trees admit the light, And shun each other's shadows as they grow.

The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest Two giant ships, the pride of all the main; Which with his one so vigorously he press'd, And flew so home they could not rise again.

Already batter'd, by his lee they lay,

In vain upon the passing winds they call: The passing winds through their torn canvass play, And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.

Their open'd sides receive a gloomy light,

Dreadful as day let into shades below; Without grim Death rides barefac'd in their sight, And urges entering billows as they flow.

When one dire shot, the last they could supply, Close by the board the prince's main-mast bore: All three now helpless by each other lie,

And this offends not, and those fear no more.

So have I seen some fearful hare maintain

A course, till tir'd before the dog she lay: Who stretch'd behind her pants upon the plain, Past power to kill, as she to get away.

With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prev; His warm breath blows her flix up as she lies; She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away, And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.

The prince unjustly does his stars accuse, Which hinder'd him to push his fortune on; For what they to his courage did refuse,

By mortal valour never must be done.

This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,

And warns his tatter'd fleet to follow home: Proud to have so got off with equal stakes, Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome.

The general's force, as kept alive by fight,
Now, not oppos'd, no longer can pursue:
Lasting till Heaven had done his courage right;
When he had conquer'd he his weakness knew.

He casts a frown on the departing foe,

And sighs to see him quit the watery field: His stern fix'd eyes no satisfaction show,

For all the glories which the fight did yield.

Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,
He stands confess'd ev'n by the boastful Dutch:
He only does his conquest disavow,

And thinks too little what they found too much.

Return'd, he with the fleet resolv'd to stay;

No tender thoughts of home his heart divide; Domestic joys and cares he puts away;

For realms are households which the great must guide.

As those who unripe veins in mines explore,
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,
Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,
And know it will be gold another day:
VOL. VIII.

So looks our monarch on this early fight,

Th' essay and rudiments of great success: Which all-maturing Time must bring to light, While he like Heaven does each day's labour bless. Heaven ended not the first or second day,

Yet each was perfect to the work design'd: God and kings work, when they their work survey, A passive aptness in all subjects find.

In burthen'd vessels first, with speedy care,

His plenteous stores do season'd timber send: Thither the brawny carpenters repair,

And as the surgeons of maim'd ships attend.

With cord and canvass, from rich Hamburgh sent,
His navy's molted wings he imps once more:
Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,
And English oak, sprung leaks and planks, restore.
All hands employ'd the royal work grows warm:
Like labouring bees on a long summer's day,
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,
And some on bells of tasted lilies play.

With glewy wax some new foundations lay
Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung:
Some arm'd within doors upon duty stay,

Or tend the sick, or educate the young.