Then, as an eagle, who with pious care
Was beating widely on the wing for prey,
To her now filent eiry does repair,
And finds her callow infants forc'd away :
CVIII.
Stung with her love, fhe ftoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whistling as she flies:
She ftops and liftens, and shoots forth again,
And guides her pinions by her young ones cries.
CIX.
With fuch kind paffion haftes the prince to fight,
And spreads his flying canvafs to the found:
Him, whom no danger were he there could fright,
Now abfent every little noise can wound.
As in a drought the thirty 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 :
CXI.
With fuch 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.
CXII.
The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,
To reap the harveft their ripe ears did yield,
Now look like thofe, when rolling thunders roar,
And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.
CXIII, Full
Full in the prince's paffage, hills of fand,
And dangerous flats in fecret ambush lay,
Where the falfe tides fkim o'er the cover'd land,
And feamen with diffembled depths betray.
CXIV.
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 fo 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 boafting valour flight.
CXVI.
Heroic virtue did his actions guide,
And he the fubftance not th' appearance chofe :
To refcue one fuch friend he took more pride,
Than to deftroy whole thousands of fuch foes.
CXVII.
But when approach'd, in ftri&t embraces bound,
Rupert and Albemarle together grow:
He joys to have his friend in fafety found,
Which he to none but to that friend would owe.
CXVIII.
The chearful soldiers, with new ftores supply'd,
Now long to execute their spleenful will;
And, in revenge for thofe three days they try'd,
Wish one, like Joshua's, when the fun 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.
CXX.
His prefence foon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns speak thick like angry men :
It feem'd as flaughter had been breath'd all night,
And death new pointed his dull dart again.
CXXI.
The Dutch too well his mighty conduc knew,
And matchiefs courage, fince the former fight:
Whofe navy like a fliff-ftretch'd cord did fhew,
Till he bore in and bent them into flight.
CXXII.
The wind he fhares, while half their feet offends
His open fide, and high above him hows:
Upon the reft at pleasure he defcends,
And doubly harm'd he double harms heftows.
CXXIII.
Behind the general mends his weary pace,
And fullenly to his revenge he fails:
So glides fome trodden ferpent on the grafs,
And long behind his wounded volume trails.
CXXIV.
Th' increafing found is borne to either fhore,
And for their takes the throwing nations fear:
Their paffions double with the cannons roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.
CXXV. Ply'd
Ply'd thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away :
So ficken waining moons too near the fun,
And blunt their crefcents on the edge of day.
CXXVI.
And now reduc'd on equal terms to fight,
Their fhips like wafted patrimonies show;
Where the thin scattering trees admit the light,
And fhun each other's fhadows as they grow.
CXXVII.
The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest
Two giant fhips, the pride of all the main ;
Which with his one fo vigorously he prefs'd,
And flew fo home they could not rise again.
CXXVIII.
Already batter'd, by his lee they lay,
In vain upon the paffing winds they call: The paffing winds through their torn canvass play, And flagging fails on heartlefs failors fall.
Their open'd fides receive a gloomy light,
Dreadful as day let into fhades below:
Without grim death rides barefac'd in their fight,
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 feen fome fearful hare maintain
A courfe, till tir'd before the dog fhe lay: Who ftretch'd behind her pants upon the plain, Paft power to kill, as fhe to get away.
With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey;
His warm breath blows her flix up as the lies;
She trembling creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back to him with befeeching eyes.
CXXXIII.
The prince unjustly does his stars accufe,
Which hinder'd him to push his fortune on;
For what they to his courage did refuse,
By mortal valour never must be done.
CXXXIV.
This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,
And warns his tatter'd feet to follow home: Proud to have fo got off with equal stakes, Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome. CXXXV.
The general's force as kept alive by fight,
Now not oppos'd no longer can pursue : Lafting till heaven had done his courage right; When he had conquer'd he his weakness knew. CXXXVI.
He cafts a frown on the departing foe,
And fighs to fee him quit the watery field:
His ftern fix'd eyes no fatisfaction show,
For all the glories which the fight did yield.
|