This feen, the reft at awful distance ftood:
As if they had been there as fervants fet
To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,
And not pursue but wait on his retreat.
XCVI.
So Libyan huntsmen, on fome fandy plain,
From fhady coverts rouz'd, the lion chace :
The kingly beaft roars out with loud disdain,
And flowly moves, unknowing to give place,
XCVII.
But if fome one approach to dare his force,
He swings his tail, and fwiftly turns him round;
With one paw feizes on his trembling horfe,
And with the other tears him to the ground.
XCVIII.
Amidst these toils fucceeds the balmy night;
Now hiffing waters the quench'd guns restore;
And weary waves withdrawing from the fight,
Lie lull'd and panting on the filent fhore.
The moon fhone clear on the becalmed flood, Where, while her beams like glittering filver play,
Upon the deck our careful general stood,
And deeply mus'd on the fucceeding day.
That happy fun, faid he, will rife again,
Who twice victoricus did our navy fee:
And I alone muft view him rife in vain,
Without one ray of all his ftar for me.
Yet like an English general will I die,
And all the ocean make my fpacious grave:
Women and cowards on the land may lie;
The fea's a tomb that's proper for the brave.
CII.
Reftlefs he pafs'd the remnant of the night,
Till the fresh air proclaim'd the morning nigh:
And burning fhips, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.
CIII.
But now, his ftores of ammunition spent,
His naked valour is his only guard :
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon fent,
And folitary guns are fcarcely heard.
CIV.
Thus far had fortune power, he forc'd to stay,
Nor longer durft with virtue be at strife:
This as a ranfom 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-fpread fails his eager navy steers,
And every ship in fwift proportion grows.
CVI.
The anxious prince had heard the cannon long,
And from that length of time dire omens drew
Of English overmatch'd, and Dutch too ftrong,
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 filent eiry does repair,
And finds her callow infants forc'd away :
CVIII.
Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whiftling as fhe 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 canvass to the found :
Him, whom no danger were he there could fright,
Now abfent every little noife can wound.
As in a drought the thirfty 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 firft eyes did distant safety meet.
CXII.
The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,
reap the harveft their ripe ears did yield,
Now look like thofe, when rolling thunders roar,
And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.
Full in the prince's passage, hills of fand,
And dangerous flats in fecret ambush lay,
Where the falfe tides skim 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 Meffiah's coming, there did wait,
And round the verge their braving veffels steer'd,
To
tempt his courage with fo fair a bait.
CXV.
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 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 destroy whole thousands of such 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.
The chearful foldiers, with new ftores fupply'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 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.
His prefence foon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns fpeak thick like angry men :
It feem'd as flaughter had been breath'd all night,
And death new pointed his dull dart again.
The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,
And matchlefs courage, fince the former fight:
Whofe navy like a ftiff-ftretch'd cord did fhew,
Till he bore in and bent them into flight.
CXXII.
The wind he fhares, while half their fleet offends
His open fide, and high above him shows :
Upon the rest at pleasure he defcends,
And doubly harm'd he double harins heftows.
CXXIII.
Behind the general mends his weary pace,
And fullenly to his revenge he fails:
So glides fome trodden ferpent on the rafs,
And long behind his wounded volume trails.
CXXIV.
Th' increasing found is borne to either fhore,
And for their ftakes the throwing nations fear :
Their paffions double with the cannons roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.
CXXV. Ply'd
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