The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose,
And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,
To see this fleet among unequal foes,
By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.
And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,
To see this fleet among unequal foes,
By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.
Dryden - Complete
Such descriptions or images well wrought, which
I promise not for mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of
heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object;
as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the
same reason beget laughter: for, the one shews nature beautified, as
in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shews
her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face
and antique gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it
is a deviation from nature. But though the same images serve equally
for the Epic poesy, and for the Historic and Panegyric, which are
branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them.
If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, _stantes in curribus
Æmiliani_, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full
proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, _spirantia mollius
æra_: there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shewn in
them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who
have seen a paper of verses, which I wrote last year to her highness
the Duchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in
them. They said, I did _humi serpere_,--that I wanted not only height
of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer
with that of Horace, _Nunc non erat his locus_; I knew I addressed
them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression,
and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and
in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I
detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just
defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's.
I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that
character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them. [97]
And now, sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length
of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for
your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion,
I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find
fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the
number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; _Nec sunt parum
multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant_: I am rather too secure
of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make
you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider,
that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your
hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent
person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my
fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make
my poem fairer by many of your blots: if not, you know the story of
the gamester who married the rich man's daughter, and when her father
denied the portion, christened all the children by his sirname, that
if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name,
as well as by the other. But, since the reproach of my faults will
light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the
readers, to let them know, that, if there be any thing tolerable in
this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your
encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to
your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all
things, who is,
SIR,
The most obedient, and most
Faithful of your servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.
From Charlton, in Wiltshire,
Nov. 10, 1666.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 88: Sir Robert Howard was son to the Earl of Berkshire, and
brother to Lady Elizabeth Dryden, our author's wife. This epistle is
dated from Charlton, the seat of Lord Berkshire. ]
[Footnote 89: Probably "The Indian Queen," which was a joint production
of Dryden and Howard. ]
[Footnote 90: The author alludes to the privilege, anciently used,
of throwing an accentuation on the last syllable, of such a word as
_noble_, so as to make it sound _nobley_. An instance may be produced
from our author's poem on the Coronation:
Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,
No action have to busy chronicles.
]
[Footnote 91: These translations are, however, in fourteen, not twelve
syllables; a vile hobbling sort of measure, used also by Phayr, and
other old translators. ]
[Footnote 92: This is one of Dryden's hasty and inaccurate averments.
The ancient dramatic authors were particularly well acquainted with
nautical terms, and applied them with great accuracy. See a note in
Gifford's excellent edition of Massinger, vol. II. p. 229. ]
[Footnote 93: We need not here suppose, that Dryden speaks particularly
of those to whom he had offered panygyricks: undoubtedly, he had
written poems on many subjects, which, remaining unpublished, have not
descended to us. ]
[Footnote 94: Understood in the large sense, of the regulated exercise
of the imagination. ]
[Footnote 95: Commonly called a pun. ]
[Footnote 96: These notes are all retained in this edition, as well as
the smaller foot notes, by which the poet thought proper to explain
difficult passages. They are distinguished by the addition of his name. ]
[Footnote 97: In the early editions of the _Annus Mirabilis_, the
verses to the Duchess are here inserted. ]
ANNUS MIRABILIS;
THE
YEAR OF WONDERS,
1666.
1.
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. [98]
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 shipwrecked on so base a coast.
3.
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat,
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew;[99]
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.
4.
The sun but seemed the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,[100]
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. [101]
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[102] 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. [103]
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. [104]
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.
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. [105]
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. [106]
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. [107]
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,[108]
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;[109]
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. [110]
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. [111]
22.
Their chief blown up, in air, not waves, expired,
To which his pride presumed to give the law;[112]
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. [113]
25.
Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,[114]
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.
30.
And though by tempests of the prize bereft,
In heaven's inclemency some ease we find;
Our foes we vanquished by our valour left,
And only yielded to the seas and wind.
31.
Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey;
For storms, repenting, part of it restored;
Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea,
The British ocean sent her mighty lord. [115]
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 passed before,
Now sees in English ships the Holland coast,
And parents' arms, in vain, stretched from the shore.
34.
This careful husband had been long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;
Who on their fingers learned 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! [116]
Alas, what port can such a pilot find,
Who in the night of fate must blindly steer!
36.
The undistinguished 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 ever be accurst,
In whom we seek the German faith in vain;[117]
Alas, that he should teach the English first,
That fraud and avarice in the church could reign!
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 threatening 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 to 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 shew;
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. [118]
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;[119]
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,
Our prince alone would have the public voice,
And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.
45.
He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
Which without rashness he began before;
As honour made him first the danger chuse,
So still he makes it good on virtue's score.
46.
The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,
Who in that bounty to themselves are kind:
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise,
And in his plenty their abundance find. [120]
47.
With equal power he does two chiefs create,
Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone;[121]
Each able to sustain a nation's fate,
Since both had found a greater in their own.
48.
Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
Yet neither envious of the other's praise;
Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,
Like mighty partners equally they raise.
49.
The Prince long time had courted fortune's love,
But once possessed did absolutely reign;
Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,
And conquered first those beauties they would gain.
50.
The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,
That Carthage, which he ruined, rise once more;
And shook aloft the fasces of the main,
To fright those slaves with what they felt before.
51.
Together to the watery camp they haste,
Whom matrons passing to their children show;
Infants first vows for them to heaven are cast,
And future people bless them as they go. [122]
52.
With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train,
To infect a navy with their gaudy fears;
To make slow fights, and victories but vain;
But war severely, like itself, appears.
53.
Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass,
They make that warmth in others they expect;
Their valour works like bodies on a glass,
And does its image on their main project.
54.
Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,
In number, and a famed commander, bold;[123]
The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear,
Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.
55.
The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more,
On wings of all the winds to combat flies;
His murdering guns a loud defiance roar,
And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.
56.
Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight;
Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air;
The Elean plains could boast no nobler sight,[124]
When struggling champions did their bodies bare.
57.
Born each by other in a distant line,
The sea-built forts in dreadful order move;
So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,
But lands unfixed, and floating nations strove. [125]
58.
Now passed, on either side they nimbly tack;
Both strive to intercept and guide the wind;
And, in its eye, more closely they come back,[126]
To finish all the deaths they left behind.
59.
On high-raised decks the haughty Belgians ride,
Beneath whose shade our humble frigates go;
Such port the elephant bears, and so defied
By the rhinoceros, her unequal foe.
60.
And as the built,[127] so different is the fight,
Their mounting shot is on our sails designed;
Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light,
And through the yielding planks a passage find. [128]
61.
Our dreaded admiral from far they threat,
Whose battered rigging their whole war receives;
All bare, like some old oak which tempests beat,
He stands, and sees below his scattered leaves.
62.
Heroes of old, when wounded, shelter sought;
But he, who meets all danger with disdain,
Even in their face his ship to anchor brought,
And steeple-high stood propt upon the main. [129]
63.
At this excess of courage, all amazed,
The foremost of his foes awhile withdraw;
With such respect in entered Rome they gazed,
Who on high chairs the god-like Fathers saw. [130]
64.
And now, as where Patroclus' body lay,
Here Trojan chiefs advanced, and there the Greek;
Ours o'er the Duke their pious wings display,
And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek.
65.
Meantime his busy mariners he hastes,
His shattered sails with rigging to restore;
And willing pines ascend his broken masts,
Whose lofty heads rise higher than before.
66.
Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow,
More fierce the important quarrel to decide;
Like swans, in long array, his vessels show,
Whose crests advancing do the waves divide.
67.
They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
They drive, and squander the huge Belgian fleet;
Berkley alone, who nearest danger lay,
Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet. [131]
68.
The night comes on, we eager to pursue
The combat still, and they ashamed to leave;
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,
And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.
69.
In the English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame;
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,
And, slumbering, smile at the imagined flame.
70.
Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done,
Stretched on their decks, like weary oxen, lie;
Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,
Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.
71.
In dreams they fearful precipices tread;
Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore;
Or in dark churches walk among the dead;
They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more,
72.
The morn they look on with unwilling eyes,
Till from their main-top joyful news they hear
Of ships, which, by their mould, bring new supplies,
And in their colours Belgian lions bear. [132]
73.
Our watchful general had discerned from far
This mighty succour, which made glad the foe;
He sighed, but, like a father of the war,
His face spake hope, while deep his sorrows flow. [133]
74.
His wounded men he first sends off to shore,
Never, till now, unwilling to obey;
They, not their wounds, but want of strength, deplore,
And think them happy, who with him can stay.
75.
Then to the rest, "Rejoice," said he, "to-day;
In you the fortune of Great Britain lies;
Among so brave a people, you are they,
Whom heaven has chose to fight for such a prize.
76.
"If number English courages could quell,
We should at first have shun'd, not met, our foes,
Whose numerous sails the fearful only tell;[134]
Courage from hearts, and not from numbers grows. "[135]
77.
He said, nor needed more to say; with haste,
To their known stations, cheerfully they go;
And, all at once, disdaining to be last,
Solicit every gale to meet the foe.
78.
Nor did the encouraged Belgians long delay,
But, bold in others, not themselves, they stood;
So thick, our navy scarce could steer their way,
But seemed to wander in a moving wood.
79.
Our little fleet was now engaged so far,
That, like the sword-fish in the whale they fought;[136]
The combat only seemed a civil war,
Till through their bowels we our passage wrought.
80.
Never had valour, no not ours before
Done aught like this upon the land or main;
Where, not to be o'ercome, was to do more
Than all the conquests former kings did gain.
81.
The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose,
And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,
To see this fleet among unequal foes,
By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.
82.
Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear,
And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send;
Close by their fire-ships, like jackals, appear,
Who on their lions for the prey attend. [137]
83.
Silent, in smoke of cannon, they come on;
Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide:[138]
In these, the height of pleased revenge is shewn,
Who burn contented by another's side.
84.
Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,
Deceived themselves, or to preserve some friend,
Two grappling Ætnas on the ocean meet,
And English fires with Belgian flames contend.
85.
Now, at each tack, our little fleet grows less;
And, like maimed fowl, swim lagging on the main.
Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess,
While they lose cheaper than the English gain.
86.
Have you not seen, when whistled from the fist,
Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed,
And with her eagerness the quarry missed,
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind? [139]
87.
The dastard crow, that to the wood made wing,
And sees the groves no shelter can afford,
With her loud caws her craven kind does bring,
Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird.
88.
Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare:
He could not conquer, and disdained to fly;
Past hope of safety, 'twas his latest care,
Like falling Cæsar, decently to die.
89.
Yet pity did his manly spirit move,
To see those perish who so well had fought;
And generously with his despair he strove,
Resolved to live till he their safety wrought.
90.
Let other muses write his prosperous fate,
Of conquered nations tell, and kings restored;
But mine shall sing of his eclipsed estate,
Which, like the sun's, more wonders does afford.
91.
He drew his mighty frigates all before,
On which the foe his fruitless force employs;
His weak ones deep into his rear he bore,
Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise. [140]
92.
His fiery cannon did their passage guide,
And following smoke obscured them from the foe:
Thus Israel, safe from the Egyptians' pride.
By flaming pillars, and by clouds did go.
93.
Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat,
But here our courages did theirs subdue;
So Xenophon once led that famed retreat,
Which first the Asian empire overthrew.
94.
The foe approached; and one for his bold sin
Was sunk, as he that touched the ark was slain:[141]
The wild waves mastered him, and sucked him in,
And smiling eddies dimpled on the main.
95.
This seen, the rest at awful distance stood;
As if they had been there as servants set,
To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,
And not pursue, but wait on his retreat.
96.
So Libyan huntsmen, on some sandy plain,
From shady coverts roused, the lion chace;
The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,
And slowly moves, unknowing to give place. [142]
97.
But if some one approach to dare his force,
He swings his tail, and swiftly turns him round:
With one paw seizes on his trembling horse,
And with the other tears him to the ground.
98.
Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night;
Now hissing waters the quenched guns restore;
And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,
Lie lulled and panting on the silent shore. [143]
99.
The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood,
Where, while her beams like glittering silver play,
Upon the deck our careful general stood,
And deeply mused on the succeeding day. [144]
100.
"That happy sun," said he, "will rise again,
Who twice victorious did our navy see;
And I alone must view him rise in vain,
Without one ray of all his star for me.
101.
"Yet, like an English general will I die,
And all the ocean make my spacious grave:
Women and cowards on the land may lie;
The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave. "
102.
Restless he passed the remnant of the night,
Till the fresh air proclaimed the morning nigh;
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.
103.
But now his stores of ammunition spent,
His naked valour is his only guard;
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon sent,
And solitary guns are scarcely heard.
104.
Thus far had fortune power, here forced to stay,
No longer durst with fortune be at strife;
This as a ransom Albemarle did pay,
For all the glories of so great a life.
105.
For now brave Rupert from afar appears,
Whose waving streamers the glad general knows;
With full-spread sails his eager navy steers,
And every ship in swift proportion grows. [145]
106.
The anxious prince had heard the cannon long,
And, from that length of time, dire omens drew
Of English overmatched, and Dutch too strong,
Who never fought three days, but to pursue.
107.
Then, as an eagle, who with pious care
Was beating widely on the wing for prey,
To her now silent eiry does repair,
And finds her callow infants forced away;
108.
Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whistling as she flies;
She stops and listens, and shoots forth again,
And guides her pinions by her young ones cries.
109.
With such kind passion hastes the prince to fight,
And spreads his flying canvas to the sound;
Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright,
Now absent, every little noise can wound.
110.
As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry,
And gape upon the gathered clouds for rain;
And first the martlet meets it in the sky,
And with wet wings joys all the feathered train;
111.
With such glad hearts did our despairing men
Salute the appearance of the prince's fleet;
And each ambitiously would claim the ken,
That with first eyes did distant safety meet.
112.
The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,
To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield,
Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar,
And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.
113.
Full in the prince's passage, hills of sand,
And dangerous flats, in secret ambush lay;
Where the false tides skim o'er the covered land,
And seamen, with dissembled depths, betray.
114.
The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, feared
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,
And round the verge their braving vessels steered,
To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.
115.
But he, unmoved, 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 slight.
116.
Heroic virtue did his actions guide,
And he the substance, not the appearance, chose;
To rescue one such friend he took more pride,
Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes.
117.
But when approached, in strict embraces bound,
Rupert and Albemarle together grow;
He joys to have his friend in safety found,
Which he to none but to that friend would owe.
118.
The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied,
Now long to execute their spleenful will;
And, in revenge for those three days they tried,
Wish one, like Joshua's, when the sun stood still.
119.
Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet,[146]
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.
120.
His presence soon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns speak thick like angry men;
It seemed as slaughter had been breathed all night,
And death new-pointed his dull dart agen.
121.
The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,
And matchless courage, since the former fight;
Whose navy like a stiff-stretched cord did shew,
Till he bore in, and bent them into flight.
122.
The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends
His open side, and high above him shows;
Upon the rest at pleasure he descends,
And, doubly harmed, he double harms bestows.
123.
Behind, the general mends his weary pace,
And sullenly to his revenge he sails;
So glides some trodden serpent on the grass,
And long behind his wounded volume trails. [147]
124.
The increasing sound is borne to either shore,
And for their stakes the throwing nations fear;
Their passions double with the cannons' roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.
125.
Plied thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away:
So sicken waneing moons too near the sun,
And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.
126.
And now, reduced on equal terms to fight,
Their ships like wasted patrimonies show;
Where the thin scattering trees admit the light,
And shun each other's shadows as they grow.
127.
The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest
Two giant ships, the pride of all the main;
Which with his one so vigorously he pressed,
And flew so home, they could not rise again.
128.
Already battered, by his lee they lay;
In vain upon the passing winds they call;
The passing winds through their torn canvas play,
And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.
129.
Their opened sides receive a gloomy light,
Dreadful as day let into shades below;
Without, grim death rides barefaced in their sight,
And urges entering billows as they flow.
130.
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.
131.
So have I seen some fearful hare maintain
A course, till tired before the dog she lay;
Who, stretched behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away.
132.
With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey;
His warm breath blows her flix[148] up as she lies;
She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.
133.
The prince unjustly does his stars accuse,
Which hindered him to push his fortune on;
For what they to his courage did refuse,
By mortal valour never must be done.
134.
This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,
And warns his tattered fleet to follow home;
Proud to have so got off with equal stakes,
Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome. [149]
135.
The general's force, as kept alive by fight,
Now not opposed, no longer can pursue;
Lasting till heaven had done his courage right;
When he had conquered, he his weakness knew.
136.
He casts a frown on the departing foe,
And sighs to see him quit the watery field;
His stern fixed eyes no satisfaction show,
For all the glories which the fight did yield.
137.
Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,
He stands confessed e'en by the boastful Dutch;
He only does his conquest disavow,
And thinks too little what they found too much.
138.
Returned, he with the fleet resolved to stay;
No tender thoughts of home his heart divide;
Domestic joys and cares he puts away,
For realms are households which the great must guide. [150]
139.
As those, who unripe veins in mines explore,
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,
Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,
And know it will be gold another day;[151]
140.
So looks our monarch on this early fight,
Th' essay and rudiments of great success;
Which all-maturing time must bring to light,
While he, like heaven, does each day's labour bless.
141.
Heaven ended not the first or second day,
Yet each was perfect to the work designed:
God and kings work, when they their work survey,
A passive aptness in all subjects find.
142.
In burdened vessels first, with speedy care,
His plenteous stores do season'd timber send;
Thither the brawny carpenters repair,
And as the surgeons of maimed ships attend.
143.
With cord and canvas from rich Hamburgh sent,
His navy's molted wings he imps[152] once more;
Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,
And English oak, sprung leaks and planks restore.
144.
All hands employed, the royal work grows warm;
Like labouring bees on a long summer's day,
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,
And some on bells of tasted lilies play.
145.
With glewy wax some new foundations lay,
Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung;
Some armed within doors, upon duty stay,
Or tend the sick, or educate the young. [153]
146.
So here some pick out bullets from the sides,
Some drive old oakum through each seam and rift;
Their left hand does the caulking-iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.
147.
With boiling pitch another near at hand,
From friendly Sweden[154] brought, the seams in-stops;
Which well paid o'er, the salt sea waves withstand,
And shakes them from the rising beak in drops.
148.
Some the galled ropes with dawby marline[155] bind,
Or searcloth masts with strong tarpawling[156] coats;
To try new shrouds, one mounts into the wind,
And one below their ease or stiffness notes.
149.
Our careful monarch stands in person by,
His new-cast cannons' firmness to explore;
The strength of big-corn'd powder loves to try,
And ball and cartridge sorts for every bore.
150.
Each day brings fresh supplies of arms and men,
And ships which all last winter were abroad;
And such as fitted since the fight had been,
Or new from stocks, were fallen into the road.
151.
The goodly London, in her gallant trim,
The Phœnix-daughter of the vanished old,[157]
Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim,
And on her shadow rides in floating gold.
152.
Her flag aloft, spread ruffling to the wind,
And sanguine streamers, seem the flood to fire;
The weaver, charmed with what his loom designed,
Goes on to sea, and knows not to retire.
153.
With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,
Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves;
Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,
She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves.
154.
This martial present, piously designed,
The loyal city give their best-loved king;
And, with a bounty ample as the wind,
Built, fitted, and maintained, to aid him bring.
155.
By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow:
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,
Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.
156.
Some log, perhaps, upon the waters swam,
An useless drift, which, rudely cut within;
And hollow'd, first a floating trough became,
And cross some rivulet passage did begin.
157.
In shipping such as this, the Irish kern,
And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide;
Ere sharp-keel'd boats to stem the flood did learn,
Or fin-like oars did spread from either side.
158.
Add but a sail, and Saturn so appeared,
When from lost empire he to exile went,
And with the golden age to Tyber steer'd,
Where coin and commerce first he did invent.
159.
Rude as their ships was navigation then;
No useful compass or meridian known;
Coasting, they kept the land within their ken,
And knew no north but when the Pole-star shone.
160.
Of all, who since have used the open sea,
Than the bold English none more fame have won;
Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high way,[158]
They make discoveries where they see no sun.
161.
But what so long in vain, and yet unknown,
By poor mankind's benighted wit is sought,
Shall in this age to Britain first be shewn,
And hence be to admiring nations taught.
162.
The ebbs of tides, and their mysterious flow,
We, as art's elements, shall understand;
And as by line upon the ocean go,
Whose paths shall be familiar as the land.
163.
Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,[159]
By which remotest regions are allied;
Which makes one city of the universe,
Where some may gain, and all may be supplied.
164.
Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,
And view the ocean leaning on the sky:
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world securely pry.
165.
This I foretel from your auspicious care,[160]
Who great in search of God and nature grow;
Who best your wise Creator's praise declare,
Since best to praise His works is best to know.
166.
O truly royal! who behold the law,
And rule of beings in your Maker's mind;[161]
And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw,
To fit the levelled use of human-kind.
167.
But first the toils of war we must endure,
And from the injurious Dutch redeem the seas;
War makes the valiant of his right secure,
And gives up fraud to be chastised with ease.
168.
Already were the Belgians on our coast,[162]
Whose fleet more mighty every day became
By late success, which they did falsely boast,
And now, by first appearing, seemed to claim.
169.
Designing, subtile, diligent, and close,
They knew to manage war with wise delay;
Yet all those arts their vanity did cross,
And by their pride their prudence did betray.
170.
Nor staid the English long; but, well supplied,
Appear as numerous as the insulting foe;
The combat now by courage must be tried,
And the success the braver nation show.
171.
There was the Plymouth squadron now come in,
Which in the Straits last winter was abroad;
Which twice on Biscay's working bay had been,
And on the midland sea the French had awed.
172.
Old expert Allen, loyal all along,
Famed for his action on the Smyrna fleet;[163]
And Holmes, whose name shall live in epic song,
While music numbers, or while verse has feet. [164]
173.
Holmes, the Achates of the general's fight,
Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold;
As once old Cato, in the Roman sight,
The tempting fruits of Afric did unfold.
174.
With him went Spragge, as bountiful as brave,
Whom his high courage to command had brought;[165]
Harman, who did the twice-fired Harry save,
And in his burning ship undaunted fought. [166]
175.
Young Hollis on a muse by Mars begot,
Born, Cæsar-like, to write and act great deeds;
Impatient to revenge his fatal shot,
His right hand doubly to his left succeeds. [167]
176.
Thousands were there in darker fame that dwell,
Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn;
And, though to me unknown, they sure fought well,
Whom Rupert led, and who were British born.
177.
Of every size an hundred fighting sail;
So vast the navy now at anchor rides,
That underneath it the pressed waters fail,
And with its weight it shoulders off the tides.
178.
Now, anchors weighed, the seamen shout so shrill,
That heaven and earth, and the wide ocean, rings;
A breeze from westward waits their sails to fill,
And rests in those high beds his downy wings.
179.
The wary Dutch this gathering storm foresaw,
And durst not bide it on the English coast;
Behind their treacherous shallows they withdraw,
And there lay snares to catch the British host.
180.
So the false spider, when her nets are spread,
Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie,
And feels far off the trembling of her thread,
Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly;
181.
Then, if at last she find him fast beset,
She issues forth, and runs along her loom;
She joys to touch the captive in her net,
And drag the little wretch in triumph home.
182.
I promise not for mine, are, as I have said, the adequate delight of
heroic poesy; for they beget admiration, which is its proper object;
as the images of the burlesque, which is contrary to this, by the
same reason beget laughter: for, the one shews nature beautified, as
in the picture of a fair woman, which we all admire; the other shews
her deformed, as in that of a lazar, or of a fool with distorted face
and antique gestures, at which we cannot forbear to laugh, because it
is a deviation from nature. But though the same images serve equally
for the Epic poesy, and for the Historic and Panegyric, which are
branches of it, yet a several sort of sculpture is to be used in them.
If some of them are to be like those of Juvenal, _stantes in curribus
Æmiliani_, heroes drawn in their triumphal chariots, and in their full
proportion; others are to be like that of Virgil, _spirantia mollius
æra_: there is somewhat more of softness and tenderness to be shewn in
them. You will soon find I write not this without concern. Some, who
have seen a paper of verses, which I wrote last year to her highness
the Duchess, have accused them of that only thing I could defend in
them. They said, I did _humi serpere_,--that I wanted not only height
of fancy, but dignity of words, to set it off. I might well answer
with that of Horace, _Nunc non erat his locus_; I knew I addressed
them to a lady, and accordingly I affected the softness of expression,
and the smoothness of measure, rather than the height of thought; and
in what I did endeavour, it is no vanity to say I have succeeded. I
detest arrogance; but there is some difference betwixt that and a just
defence. But I will not farther bribe your candour, or the reader's.
I leave them to speak for me; and, if they can, to make out that
character, not pretending to a greater, which I have given them. [97]
And now, sir, it is time I should relieve you from the tedious length
of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for
your hours, and I wrong the public to detain you longer. In conclusion,
I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find
fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the
number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; _Nec sunt parum
multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium vocant_: I am rather too secure
of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make
you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider,
that they come into the world with your approbation, and through your
hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent
person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my
fame and reputation; and therefore I hope it will stir you up to make
my poem fairer by many of your blots: if not, you know the story of
the gamester who married the rich man's daughter, and when her father
denied the portion, christened all the children by his sirname, that
if, in conclusion, they must beg, they should do so by one name,
as well as by the other. But, since the reproach of my faults will
light on you, it is but reason I should do you that justice to the
readers, to let them know, that, if there be any thing tolerable in
this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your
encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the care of it to
your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all
things, who is,
SIR,
The most obedient, and most
Faithful of your servants,
JOHN DRYDEN.
From Charlton, in Wiltshire,
Nov. 10, 1666.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 88: Sir Robert Howard was son to the Earl of Berkshire, and
brother to Lady Elizabeth Dryden, our author's wife. This epistle is
dated from Charlton, the seat of Lord Berkshire. ]
[Footnote 89: Probably "The Indian Queen," which was a joint production
of Dryden and Howard. ]
[Footnote 90: The author alludes to the privilege, anciently used,
of throwing an accentuation on the last syllable, of such a word as
_noble_, so as to make it sound _nobley_. An instance may be produced
from our author's poem on the Coronation:
Some lazy ages, lost in sleep and ease,
No action have to busy chronicles.
]
[Footnote 91: These translations are, however, in fourteen, not twelve
syllables; a vile hobbling sort of measure, used also by Phayr, and
other old translators. ]
[Footnote 92: This is one of Dryden's hasty and inaccurate averments.
The ancient dramatic authors were particularly well acquainted with
nautical terms, and applied them with great accuracy. See a note in
Gifford's excellent edition of Massinger, vol. II. p. 229. ]
[Footnote 93: We need not here suppose, that Dryden speaks particularly
of those to whom he had offered panygyricks: undoubtedly, he had
written poems on many subjects, which, remaining unpublished, have not
descended to us. ]
[Footnote 94: Understood in the large sense, of the regulated exercise
of the imagination. ]
[Footnote 95: Commonly called a pun. ]
[Footnote 96: These notes are all retained in this edition, as well as
the smaller foot notes, by which the poet thought proper to explain
difficult passages. They are distinguished by the addition of his name. ]
[Footnote 97: In the early editions of the _Annus Mirabilis_, the
verses to the Duchess are here inserted. ]
ANNUS MIRABILIS;
THE
YEAR OF WONDERS,
1666.
1.
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. [98]
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 shipwrecked on so base a coast.
3.
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat,
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew;[99]
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.
4.
The sun but seemed the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,[100]
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. [101]
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[102] 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. [103]
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. [104]
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.
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. [105]
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. [106]
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. [107]
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,[108]
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;[109]
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. [110]
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. [111]
22.
Their chief blown up, in air, not waves, expired,
To which his pride presumed to give the law;[112]
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. [113]
25.
Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,[114]
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.
30.
And though by tempests of the prize bereft,
In heaven's inclemency some ease we find;
Our foes we vanquished by our valour left,
And only yielded to the seas and wind.
31.
Nor wholly lost we so deserved a prey;
For storms, repenting, part of it restored;
Which as a tribute from the Baltic sea,
The British ocean sent her mighty lord. [115]
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 passed before,
Now sees in English ships the Holland coast,
And parents' arms, in vain, stretched from the shore.
34.
This careful husband had been long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;
Who on their fingers learned 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! [116]
Alas, what port can such a pilot find,
Who in the night of fate must blindly steer!
36.
The undistinguished 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 ever be accurst,
In whom we seek the German faith in vain;[117]
Alas, that he should teach the English first,
That fraud and avarice in the church could reign!
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 threatening 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 to 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 shew;
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. [118]
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;[119]
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,
Our prince alone would have the public voice,
And all his neighbours' realms would deserts make.
45.
He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
Which without rashness he began before;
As honour made him first the danger chuse,
So still he makes it good on virtue's score.
46.
The doubled charge his subjects' love supplies,
Who in that bounty to themselves are kind:
So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise,
And in his plenty their abundance find. [120]
47.
With equal power he does two chiefs create,
Two such as each seemed worthiest when alone;[121]
Each able to sustain a nation's fate,
Since both had found a greater in their own.
48.
Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
Yet neither envious of the other's praise;
Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,
Like mighty partners equally they raise.
49.
The Prince long time had courted fortune's love,
But once possessed did absolutely reign;
Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,
And conquered first those beauties they would gain.
50.
The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,
That Carthage, which he ruined, rise once more;
And shook aloft the fasces of the main,
To fright those slaves with what they felt before.
51.
Together to the watery camp they haste,
Whom matrons passing to their children show;
Infants first vows for them to heaven are cast,
And future people bless them as they go. [122]
52.
With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train,
To infect a navy with their gaudy fears;
To make slow fights, and victories but vain;
But war severely, like itself, appears.
53.
Diffusive of themselves, where'er they pass,
They make that warmth in others they expect;
Their valour works like bodies on a glass,
And does its image on their main project.
54.
Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,
In number, and a famed commander, bold;[123]
The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear,
Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.
55.
The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more,
On wings of all the winds to combat flies;
His murdering guns a loud defiance roar,
And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.
56.
Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight;
Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air;
The Elean plains could boast no nobler sight,[124]
When struggling champions did their bodies bare.
57.
Born each by other in a distant line,
The sea-built forts in dreadful order move;
So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,
But lands unfixed, and floating nations strove. [125]
58.
Now passed, on either side they nimbly tack;
Both strive to intercept and guide the wind;
And, in its eye, more closely they come back,[126]
To finish all the deaths they left behind.
59.
On high-raised decks the haughty Belgians ride,
Beneath whose shade our humble frigates go;
Such port the elephant bears, and so defied
By the rhinoceros, her unequal foe.
60.
And as the built,[127] so different is the fight,
Their mounting shot is on our sails designed;
Deep in their hulls our deadly bullets light,
And through the yielding planks a passage find. [128]
61.
Our dreaded admiral from far they threat,
Whose battered rigging their whole war receives;
All bare, like some old oak which tempests beat,
He stands, and sees below his scattered leaves.
62.
Heroes of old, when wounded, shelter sought;
But he, who meets all danger with disdain,
Even in their face his ship to anchor brought,
And steeple-high stood propt upon the main. [129]
63.
At this excess of courage, all amazed,
The foremost of his foes awhile withdraw;
With such respect in entered Rome they gazed,
Who on high chairs the god-like Fathers saw. [130]
64.
And now, as where Patroclus' body lay,
Here Trojan chiefs advanced, and there the Greek;
Ours o'er the Duke their pious wings display,
And theirs the noblest spoils of Britain seek.
65.
Meantime his busy mariners he hastes,
His shattered sails with rigging to restore;
And willing pines ascend his broken masts,
Whose lofty heads rise higher than before.
66.
Straight to the Dutch he turns his dreadful prow,
More fierce the important quarrel to decide;
Like swans, in long array, his vessels show,
Whose crests advancing do the waves divide.
67.
They charge, recharge, and all along the sea
They drive, and squander the huge Belgian fleet;
Berkley alone, who nearest danger lay,
Did a like fate with lost Creusa meet. [131]
68.
The night comes on, we eager to pursue
The combat still, and they ashamed to leave;
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,
And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.
69.
In the English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame;
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,
And, slumbering, smile at the imagined flame.
70.
Not so the Holland fleet, who, tired and done,
Stretched on their decks, like weary oxen, lie;
Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,
Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply.
71.
In dreams they fearful precipices tread;
Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore;
Or in dark churches walk among the dead;
They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more,
72.
The morn they look on with unwilling eyes,
Till from their main-top joyful news they hear
Of ships, which, by their mould, bring new supplies,
And in their colours Belgian lions bear. [132]
73.
Our watchful general had discerned from far
This mighty succour, which made glad the foe;
He sighed, but, like a father of the war,
His face spake hope, while deep his sorrows flow. [133]
74.
His wounded men he first sends off to shore,
Never, till now, unwilling to obey;
They, not their wounds, but want of strength, deplore,
And think them happy, who with him can stay.
75.
Then to the rest, "Rejoice," said he, "to-day;
In you the fortune of Great Britain lies;
Among so brave a people, you are they,
Whom heaven has chose to fight for such a prize.
76.
"If number English courages could quell,
We should at first have shun'd, not met, our foes,
Whose numerous sails the fearful only tell;[134]
Courage from hearts, and not from numbers grows. "[135]
77.
He said, nor needed more to say; with haste,
To their known stations, cheerfully they go;
And, all at once, disdaining to be last,
Solicit every gale to meet the foe.
78.
Nor did the encouraged Belgians long delay,
But, bold in others, not themselves, they stood;
So thick, our navy scarce could steer their way,
But seemed to wander in a moving wood.
79.
Our little fleet was now engaged so far,
That, like the sword-fish in the whale they fought;[136]
The combat only seemed a civil war,
Till through their bowels we our passage wrought.
80.
Never had valour, no not ours before
Done aught like this upon the land or main;
Where, not to be o'ercome, was to do more
Than all the conquests former kings did gain.
81.
The mighty ghosts of our great Harries rose,
And armed Edwards looked with anxious eyes,
To see this fleet among unequal foes,
By which fate promised them their Charles should rise.
82.
Meantime the Belgians tack upon our rear,
And raking chase-guns through our sterns they send;
Close by their fire-ships, like jackals, appear,
Who on their lions for the prey attend. [137]
83.
Silent, in smoke of cannon, they come on;
Such vapours once did fiery Cacus hide:[138]
In these, the height of pleased revenge is shewn,
Who burn contented by another's side.
84.
Sometimes from fighting squadrons of each fleet,
Deceived themselves, or to preserve some friend,
Two grappling Ætnas on the ocean meet,
And English fires with Belgian flames contend.
85.
Now, at each tack, our little fleet grows less;
And, like maimed fowl, swim lagging on the main.
Their greater loss their numbers scarce confess,
While they lose cheaper than the English gain.
86.
Have you not seen, when whistled from the fist,
Some falcon stoops at what her eye designed,
And with her eagerness the quarry missed,
Straight flies at check, and clips it down the wind? [139]
87.
The dastard crow, that to the wood made wing,
And sees the groves no shelter can afford,
With her loud caws her craven kind does bring,
Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird.
88.
Among the Dutch thus Albemarle did fare:
He could not conquer, and disdained to fly;
Past hope of safety, 'twas his latest care,
Like falling Cæsar, decently to die.
89.
Yet pity did his manly spirit move,
To see those perish who so well had fought;
And generously with his despair he strove,
Resolved to live till he their safety wrought.
90.
Let other muses write his prosperous fate,
Of conquered nations tell, and kings restored;
But mine shall sing of his eclipsed estate,
Which, like the sun's, more wonders does afford.
91.
He drew his mighty frigates all before,
On which the foe his fruitless force employs;
His weak ones deep into his rear he bore,
Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise. [140]
92.
His fiery cannon did their passage guide,
And following smoke obscured them from the foe:
Thus Israel, safe from the Egyptians' pride.
By flaming pillars, and by clouds did go.
93.
Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat,
But here our courages did theirs subdue;
So Xenophon once led that famed retreat,
Which first the Asian empire overthrew.
94.
The foe approached; and one for his bold sin
Was sunk, as he that touched the ark was slain:[141]
The wild waves mastered him, and sucked him in,
And smiling eddies dimpled on the main.
95.
This seen, the rest at awful distance stood;
As if they had been there as servants set,
To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,
And not pursue, but wait on his retreat.
96.
So Libyan huntsmen, on some sandy plain,
From shady coverts roused, the lion chace;
The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,
And slowly moves, unknowing to give place. [142]
97.
But if some one approach to dare his force,
He swings his tail, and swiftly turns him round:
With one paw seizes on his trembling horse,
And with the other tears him to the ground.
98.
Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night;
Now hissing waters the quenched guns restore;
And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,
Lie lulled and panting on the silent shore. [143]
99.
The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood,
Where, while her beams like glittering silver play,
Upon the deck our careful general stood,
And deeply mused on the succeeding day. [144]
100.
"That happy sun," said he, "will rise again,
Who twice victorious did our navy see;
And I alone must view him rise in vain,
Without one ray of all his star for me.
101.
"Yet, like an English general will I die,
And all the ocean make my spacious grave:
Women and cowards on the land may lie;
The sea's a tomb that's proper for the brave. "
102.
Restless he passed the remnant of the night,
Till the fresh air proclaimed the morning nigh;
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.
103.
But now his stores of ammunition spent,
His naked valour is his only guard;
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon sent,
And solitary guns are scarcely heard.
104.
Thus far had fortune power, here forced to stay,
No longer durst with fortune be at strife;
This as a ransom Albemarle did pay,
For all the glories of so great a life.
105.
For now brave Rupert from afar appears,
Whose waving streamers the glad general knows;
With full-spread sails his eager navy steers,
And every ship in swift proportion grows. [145]
106.
The anxious prince had heard the cannon long,
And, from that length of time, dire omens drew
Of English overmatched, and Dutch too strong,
Who never fought three days, but to pursue.
107.
Then, as an eagle, who with pious care
Was beating widely on the wing for prey,
To her now silent eiry does repair,
And finds her callow infants forced away;
108.
Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain,
The broken air loud whistling as she flies;
She stops and listens, and shoots forth again,
And guides her pinions by her young ones cries.
109.
With such kind passion hastes the prince to fight,
And spreads his flying canvas to the sound;
Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright,
Now absent, every little noise can wound.
110.
As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry,
And gape upon the gathered clouds for rain;
And first the martlet meets it in the sky,
And with wet wings joys all the feathered train;
111.
With such glad hearts did our despairing men
Salute the appearance of the prince's fleet;
And each ambitiously would claim the ken,
That with first eyes did distant safety meet.
112.
The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before,
To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield,
Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar,
And sheets of lightning blast the standing field.
113.
Full in the prince's passage, hills of sand,
And dangerous flats, in secret ambush lay;
Where the false tides skim o'er the covered land,
And seamen, with dissembled depths, betray.
114.
The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, feared
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait,
And round the verge their braving vessels steered,
To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.
115.
But he, unmoved, 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 slight.
116.
Heroic virtue did his actions guide,
And he the substance, not the appearance, chose;
To rescue one such friend he took more pride,
Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes.
117.
But when approached, in strict embraces bound,
Rupert and Albemarle together grow;
He joys to have his friend in safety found,
Which he to none but to that friend would owe.
118.
The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied,
Now long to execute their spleenful will;
And, in revenge for those three days they tried,
Wish one, like Joshua's, when the sun stood still.
119.
Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet,[146]
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.
120.
His presence soon blows up the kindling fight,
And his loud guns speak thick like angry men;
It seemed as slaughter had been breathed all night,
And death new-pointed his dull dart agen.
121.
The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew,
And matchless courage, since the former fight;
Whose navy like a stiff-stretched cord did shew,
Till he bore in, and bent them into flight.
122.
The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends
His open side, and high above him shows;
Upon the rest at pleasure he descends,
And, doubly harmed, he double harms bestows.
123.
Behind, the general mends his weary pace,
And sullenly to his revenge he sails;
So glides some trodden serpent on the grass,
And long behind his wounded volume trails. [147]
124.
The increasing sound is borne to either shore,
And for their stakes the throwing nations fear;
Their passions double with the cannons' roar,
And with warm wishes each man combats there.
125.
Plied thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away:
So sicken waneing moons too near the sun,
And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.
126.
And now, reduced on equal terms to fight,
Their ships like wasted patrimonies show;
Where the thin scattering trees admit the light,
And shun each other's shadows as they grow.
127.
The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest
Two giant ships, the pride of all the main;
Which with his one so vigorously he pressed,
And flew so home, they could not rise again.
128.
Already battered, by his lee they lay;
In vain upon the passing winds they call;
The passing winds through their torn canvas play,
And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.
129.
Their opened sides receive a gloomy light,
Dreadful as day let into shades below;
Without, grim death rides barefaced in their sight,
And urges entering billows as they flow.
130.
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.
131.
So have I seen some fearful hare maintain
A course, till tired before the dog she lay;
Who, stretched behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away.
132.
With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey;
His warm breath blows her flix[148] up as she lies;
She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away,
And looks back to him with beseeching eyes.
133.
The prince unjustly does his stars accuse,
Which hindered him to push his fortune on;
For what they to his courage did refuse,
By mortal valour never must be done.
134.
This lucky hour the wise Batavian takes,
And warns his tattered fleet to follow home;
Proud to have so got off with equal stakes,
Where 'twas a triumph not to be o'ercome. [149]
135.
The general's force, as kept alive by fight,
Now not opposed, no longer can pursue;
Lasting till heaven had done his courage right;
When he had conquered, he his weakness knew.
136.
He casts a frown on the departing foe,
And sighs to see him quit the watery field;
His stern fixed eyes no satisfaction show,
For all the glories which the fight did yield.
137.
Though, as when fiends did miracles avow,
He stands confessed e'en by the boastful Dutch;
He only does his conquest disavow,
And thinks too little what they found too much.
138.
Returned, he with the fleet resolved to stay;
No tender thoughts of home his heart divide;
Domestic joys and cares he puts away,
For realms are households which the great must guide. [150]
139.
As those, who unripe veins in mines explore,
On the rich bed again the warm turf lay,
Till time digests the yet imperfect ore,
And know it will be gold another day;[151]
140.
So looks our monarch on this early fight,
Th' essay and rudiments of great success;
Which all-maturing time must bring to light,
While he, like heaven, does each day's labour bless.
141.
Heaven ended not the first or second day,
Yet each was perfect to the work designed:
God and kings work, when they their work survey,
A passive aptness in all subjects find.
142.
In burdened vessels first, with speedy care,
His plenteous stores do season'd timber send;
Thither the brawny carpenters repair,
And as the surgeons of maimed ships attend.
143.
With cord and canvas from rich Hamburgh sent,
His navy's molted wings he imps[152] once more;
Tall Norway fir, their masts in battle spent,
And English oak, sprung leaks and planks restore.
144.
All hands employed, the royal work grows warm;
Like labouring bees on a long summer's day,
Some sound the trumpet for the rest to swarm,
And some on bells of tasted lilies play.
145.
With glewy wax some new foundations lay,
Of virgin-combs, which from the roof are hung;
Some armed within doors, upon duty stay,
Or tend the sick, or educate the young. [153]
146.
So here some pick out bullets from the sides,
Some drive old oakum through each seam and rift;
Their left hand does the caulking-iron guide,
The rattling mallet with the right they lift.
147.
With boiling pitch another near at hand,
From friendly Sweden[154] brought, the seams in-stops;
Which well paid o'er, the salt sea waves withstand,
And shakes them from the rising beak in drops.
148.
Some the galled ropes with dawby marline[155] bind,
Or searcloth masts with strong tarpawling[156] coats;
To try new shrouds, one mounts into the wind,
And one below their ease or stiffness notes.
149.
Our careful monarch stands in person by,
His new-cast cannons' firmness to explore;
The strength of big-corn'd powder loves to try,
And ball and cartridge sorts for every bore.
150.
Each day brings fresh supplies of arms and men,
And ships which all last winter were abroad;
And such as fitted since the fight had been,
Or new from stocks, were fallen into the road.
151.
The goodly London, in her gallant trim,
The Phœnix-daughter of the vanished old,[157]
Like a rich bride does to the ocean swim,
And on her shadow rides in floating gold.
152.
Her flag aloft, spread ruffling to the wind,
And sanguine streamers, seem the flood to fire;
The weaver, charmed with what his loom designed,
Goes on to sea, and knows not to retire.
153.
With roomy decks, her guns of mighty strength,
Whose low-laid mouths each mounting billow laves;
Deep in her draught, and warlike in her length,
She seems a sea-wasp flying on the waves.
154.
This martial present, piously designed,
The loyal city give their best-loved king;
And, with a bounty ample as the wind,
Built, fitted, and maintained, to aid him bring.
155.
By viewing nature, nature's handmaid, art,
Makes mighty things from small beginnings grow:
Thus fishes first to shipping did impart,
Their tail the rudder, and their head the prow.
156.
Some log, perhaps, upon the waters swam,
An useless drift, which, rudely cut within;
And hollow'd, first a floating trough became,
And cross some rivulet passage did begin.
157.
In shipping such as this, the Irish kern,
And untaught Indian, on the stream did glide;
Ere sharp-keel'd boats to stem the flood did learn,
Or fin-like oars did spread from either side.
158.
Add but a sail, and Saturn so appeared,
When from lost empire he to exile went,
And with the golden age to Tyber steer'd,
Where coin and commerce first he did invent.
159.
Rude as their ships was navigation then;
No useful compass or meridian known;
Coasting, they kept the land within their ken,
And knew no north but when the Pole-star shone.
160.
Of all, who since have used the open sea,
Than the bold English none more fame have won;
Beyond the year, and out of heaven's high way,[158]
They make discoveries where they see no sun.
161.
But what so long in vain, and yet unknown,
By poor mankind's benighted wit is sought,
Shall in this age to Britain first be shewn,
And hence be to admiring nations taught.
162.
The ebbs of tides, and their mysterious flow,
We, as art's elements, shall understand;
And as by line upon the ocean go,
Whose paths shall be familiar as the land.
163.
Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,[159]
By which remotest regions are allied;
Which makes one city of the universe,
Where some may gain, and all may be supplied.
164.
Then we upon our globe's last verge shall go,
And view the ocean leaning on the sky:
From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,
And on the lunar world securely pry.
165.
This I foretel from your auspicious care,[160]
Who great in search of God and nature grow;
Who best your wise Creator's praise declare,
Since best to praise His works is best to know.
166.
O truly royal! who behold the law,
And rule of beings in your Maker's mind;[161]
And thence, like limbecs, rich ideas draw,
To fit the levelled use of human-kind.
167.
But first the toils of war we must endure,
And from the injurious Dutch redeem the seas;
War makes the valiant of his right secure,
And gives up fraud to be chastised with ease.
168.
Already were the Belgians on our coast,[162]
Whose fleet more mighty every day became
By late success, which they did falsely boast,
And now, by first appearing, seemed to claim.
169.
Designing, subtile, diligent, and close,
They knew to manage war with wise delay;
Yet all those arts their vanity did cross,
And by their pride their prudence did betray.
170.
Nor staid the English long; but, well supplied,
Appear as numerous as the insulting foe;
The combat now by courage must be tried,
And the success the braver nation show.
171.
There was the Plymouth squadron now come in,
Which in the Straits last winter was abroad;
Which twice on Biscay's working bay had been,
And on the midland sea the French had awed.
172.
Old expert Allen, loyal all along,
Famed for his action on the Smyrna fleet;[163]
And Holmes, whose name shall live in epic song,
While music numbers, or while verse has feet. [164]
173.
Holmes, the Achates of the general's fight,
Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold;
As once old Cato, in the Roman sight,
The tempting fruits of Afric did unfold.
174.
With him went Spragge, as bountiful as brave,
Whom his high courage to command had brought;[165]
Harman, who did the twice-fired Harry save,
And in his burning ship undaunted fought. [166]
175.
Young Hollis on a muse by Mars begot,
Born, Cæsar-like, to write and act great deeds;
Impatient to revenge his fatal shot,
His right hand doubly to his left succeeds. [167]
176.
Thousands were there in darker fame that dwell,
Whose deeds some nobler poem shall adorn;
And, though to me unknown, they sure fought well,
Whom Rupert led, and who were British born.
177.
Of every size an hundred fighting sail;
So vast the navy now at anchor rides,
That underneath it the pressed waters fail,
And with its weight it shoulders off the tides.
178.
Now, anchors weighed, the seamen shout so shrill,
That heaven and earth, and the wide ocean, rings;
A breeze from westward waits their sails to fill,
And rests in those high beds his downy wings.
179.
The wary Dutch this gathering storm foresaw,
And durst not bide it on the English coast;
Behind their treacherous shallows they withdraw,
And there lay snares to catch the British host.
180.
So the false spider, when her nets are spread,
Deep ambushed in her silent den does lie,
And feels far off the trembling of her thread,
Whose filmy cord should bind the struggling fly;
181.
Then, if at last she find him fast beset,
She issues forth, and runs along her loom;
She joys to touch the captive in her net,
And drag the little wretch in triumph home.
182.
