12 The loss and gain each fatally were great; And still his subjects call'd aloud for war; But peaceful kings, o'er martial people set,

Each other's poise and counterbalance are.

13 He first survey'd 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.

14 At length resolved to assert the watery ball, He in himself did whole Armadas 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.

18 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.

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 doom'd that Law son1 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 kill'd 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 confess'd Heaven present, and retired,
And all was Britain the wide ocean saw.

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

When thunder speaks the angry gods abroad.

24 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.

25 Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,

Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring:

''Lawson:' Sir John Lawson, rear admiral of the red, killed by a ball that wounded him in the knee.

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, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie;
And round about their murdering cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eyc.

27 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.

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

30 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.

31 Nor wholly lost1 we so deserved a prey; For storms repenting part of it restored:

1 Wholly lost:' the Dutch ships on their return home, being separated by a storm, the rear and vice-admirals of the East India fleet, with four men of war, were taken by five English frigates. Soon after, four men of war, two fire-ships, and thirty merchantmen, being driven out of their course, joined our fleet instead of their own, and were all taken. These things happened in 1665.

Which, as a tribute from the Baltic sea,
The British ocean sent her mighty lord.

32 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.

33 The son, who twice three months on th' ocean tost,
Prepared 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.

34 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 promised to return.

35 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!

36 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.

37 Let Munster's prelate 1 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!

'Munster's prelate:' the famous Bertrand Von Der Ghalen, Bishop of Munster, excited by Charles, marched twenty thousand men into the province of Ove

38 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.

39 Till now, alone the mighty nations strove ;

The rest, at gaze, without the lists did stand:
And threat'ning France, placed like a painted Jove,
Kept idle thunder in his lifted hand.

40 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.

41 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.

42 With France, to aid the Dutch, the Danes unite : France as their tyrant, Denmark as their slave, But when with one three nations join to fight, They silently confess that one more brave.

43 Lewis had chased the English from his shore;
But Charles the French as subjects does invite :
Would Heaven for each some Solomon restore,
Who, by their mercy, may decide their right!

44 Were subjects so but only by their choice,

And not from birth did forced dominion take,

ryssel, under the dominion of the republic of Holland, where he committed great outrages.