4.

The sun but seemed the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the Line did bear
Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore.

5.

Thus, mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong;
And this may prove our second Punic war. †

6.

What peace can be, where both to one pretend? (But they more diligent, and we more strong,) Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;

For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

7.

Behold two nations then, engaged so far,

That each seven years the fit must shake each land; Where France will side to weaken us by war, Who only can his vast designs withstand.

8.

See how he feeds the Iberian ‡ with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain ;
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain. §

* According to their opinion who think, that great heap of waters under the Line, is depressed into tides by the moon towards the poles. Dryden.

+ Note II.

The Spaniard.

§ Note III.

9.

Such deep designs of empire does he lay
O'er them, whose cause he seems to take in hand
And prudently would make them lords at sea,
To whom with ease he can give laws by land,

10.

This saw our king; and long within his breast
His pensive counsels balanced to and fro ;
He grieved the land he freed should be oppressed,
And he less for it than usurpers do.

11.

His generous mind the fair ideas drew

Of fame and honour, which in dangers lay; Where wealth, like fruit on precipices, grew, Not to be gathered but by birds of prey,

12.

The loss and gain each fatally were great;
And still his subjects called aloud for war:
But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set,
Each other's poize and counterbalance are.

13.

He first surveyed the charge with careful eyes,
Which none but mighty monarchs could maintain;
Yet judged, like vapours that from limbecks rise,
It would in richer showers descend again.

* Alluding to the successful war of Cromwell against the Dutch, in 1653.

14.

At length resolved to assert the watery ball,
He in himself did whole Armadas bring;
Him aged seamen might their master call,
And chuse for general, were he not their king.

15.

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. ↑
16.

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. ‡

17.

Whether they unctuous exhalations are,
Fired by the sun, or seeming so alone;
Or each some more remote and slippery star,
Which loses footing when to mortals shewn;

18.

Or one, that bright companion of the sun, §
Whose glorious aspect sealed our new-born king;
And now, a round of greater years begun,

New influence from his walks of light did bring.

Note IV.

+ Caruleus Proteus immania ponti

Armenta, et magnas pascit sub gurgite phocas. ↑ Note V.

The planet Venus, which was visible in the day-time about the birth-day of Charles II., was by court astronomers affirmed to be a new star. See

page

51.

2

19.

Victorious York did first, with famed success,
To his known valour make the Dutch give place; *
Thus heaven our monarch's fortune did confess,
Beginning conquest from his royal race.

20.

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 doomed that Lawson should be slain. †

21.

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 killed, who first to battle went.

22.

Their chief blown up, in air, not waves, expired, To which his pride presumed to give the law; § The Dutch confessed heaven present, and retired, And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.

23.

To nearest ports their shattered ships repair, Where by our dreadful cannon they lay awed; So reverently men quit the open air,

Where thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

Protesilaus, the first Grecian who landed on the Trojan shore, was killed in disembarking.

§ Opdam, the admiral of Holland. See note VIII.

24.

And now approached 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.

25.

*

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store, †
Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coast they bring;
There first the North's cold bosom spices bore,
And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

26.

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

27.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake the unequal war;
Seven ships alone, by which the port is barred,
Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

28.

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.

29.

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours armed against them fly;
Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall,
And some by aromatic splinters die.

* The war began, by mutual aggressions, on the coast of Guinea,
+ Note IX.