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.

Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night; Now hissing waters the quench'd guns restore; And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight, Lie lull'd and panting on the silent shore.

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 mus❜d on the succeeding day.

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.

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.'

Restless he pass'd the remnant of the night,
Till the fresh air proclaim'd the morning nigh:
And burning ships, the martyrs of the fight,
With paler fires beheld the eastern sky.

But now, his stores of ammunition spent,
His naked valour is his only guard;
Rare thunders are from his dumb cannon seut,
And solitary guns are scarcely heard.

Thus far had Fortune pow'r, he forc'd to stay,
Nor longer durst with Virtue be at strife:
This, as a ransom, 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-spread sails his eager navy steers,
And every ship in swift proportion grows.

The anxious Prince had heard the cannon long, And from that length of time dire omens drew Of English overmatch'd, and Dutch too strong, Who never fought three days, but to pursue.

Then, as 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 forc'd away:

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.

With such kind passion hastes the Prince to fight, And spreads his flying canvass to the sound: Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright, Now, absent, every little noise can wound.

As in a drought the thirsty 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.

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.

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.

Full in the Prince's passage hills of sand

And dangerous flats in secret ambush lay, Where the false tides skim o'er the cover'd land, And seamen with dissembled depths betray.

The wily Dutch, who, like fall'n angels, fear'd
This new Messiah's coming, there did wait;
And round the verge their braving vessels steer'd,
To tempt his courage with so fair a bait.

But he, unmov'd, contemns their idle threat,
Secure of fame whene'er he pleas'd to fight:
His cold experience tempers all his heat,

And inbred worth doth boasting valour slight.

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.

But when approach'd, 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,

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.

Thus re-inforc'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

presence soon blows up the kindling fight, And his loud guns speak thick like angry men: It seem'd as slaughter had been breath'd all night, And Death new-pointed his dull dart again.

The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew, And matchless courage, since the former fight: Whose navy still a stiff-stretch'd cord did shew, Till he bore in, and bent them into flight.

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 harm'd, he double harms bestows.

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.

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.

Plied thick and close as when the fight begun,
Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away:
So sicken weaning moons too near the sun,
And blunt their crescents on the edge of day.

And now reduc'd 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.

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 press'd,
And flew so home, they could not rise again.

Already batter'd, by his lee they lay,

In vain upon the passing winds they call; The passing winds through their torn canvass play, And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall.

Their open'd sides receive a gloomy light,
Dreadful as day let into shades below:
Without, grim death rides barefac'd in their sight,
And urges entering billows as they flow.

When one dire shot, the last they could supply,
Close by the board the Prince's mainmast bore;

All three, now helpless, by each other lie,
And this offends not, and those fear no more.

So have I seen some fearful hare maintain
A course, till tir'd before the dog she lay ;
Who, stretch'd behind her, pants upon the plain,
Past power to kill, as she to get away.