ANNUS MIRABILIS:

THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666.

I

IN thriving arts long time had Holland grown,

Crouching at home and cruel when abroad; Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own, Our King they courted and our merchants awed.

2

Trade, which like blood should circularly flow,

Stopped in their channels, found its freedom lost: Thither the wealth of all the world did go,

And seemed but shipwracked on so base a coast.

3

For them alone the heavens had kindly heat,
In eastern quarries a ripening precious dew;
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4

The sun but seemed the labourer of their year;

Each wexing 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.

a In eastern quarries. Precious stones at first are dew condensed, and hardened by the warmth of the sun or subterranean fires.

b Each wexing moon. According to their opinions who think that great heap of the waters under the Line is depressed into tides by the moon toward the poles.

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.

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.

ΙΟ

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

II

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 poise and counterbalance are.
e The Iberian. The Spaniard.

13

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

14

At length resolved to assert the watery ball,
He in himself did whole armados bring;
Him aged seamen might their master call

And choose 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 shown;

d When Proteus blows, or

Cæruleus Proteus immania ponti

Armenta, et magnas pascit sub gurgite phocas.'-VIRG.

[Not quoted exactly by Dryden:

Cæruleus Proteus, magnum qui piscibus æquor
Et juncto bipedum curru metitur equorum.

Quippe ita Neptuno visum est; immania cujus
Armenta et turpes pascit sub gurgite phocas.'
VIRG. Georg. iv. 388.]

The attempt at Berghen.

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.

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 chiefe 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.

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.

The Admiral of Holland.

f Southern climates. Guinea.