drums, and cannons drowned her voice:She saw the Boyne run thick with human gore,
And floating corps lie beating on the shore:
She saw thee climb the banks, but tried in vain
To trace her hero through the dusty plain,
When through the thick embattled lines he broke,
Now plunged amidst the foes, now lost in clouds of smoke.
Oh that some Muse, renowned for lofty verse,
In daring numbers would thy toils rehearse!
Draw thee beloved in peace, and feared in wars,
Inured to noonday sweats, and midnight cares!
But still the godlike man, by some hard fate,
Receives the glory of his toils too late;
Too late the verse the mighty act succeeds;
One age the hero, one the poet breeds.
A thousand years in full succession ran
Ere Virgil raised his voice, and sung the man
Who, driven by stress of fate, such dangers bore
On stormy seas and a disastrous shore,
Before he settled in the promised earth,
And gave the empire of the world its birth.
Troy long had found the Grecians bold and fierce,
Ere Homer mustered up their troops in verse;
Long had Achilles quelled the Trojans' lust,
And laid the labour of the gods in dust,
Before the towering Muse began her flight,
And drew the hero raging in the fight,
Engaged in tented fields and rolling floods,
Or slaughtering mortals, or a match for gods.
And here, perhaps, by fate's unerring doom,
Some mighty bard lies hid in years to come,
That shall in William's godlike acts engage,
And with his battles warm a future age.
Hibernian fields shall here thy conquests show,
And Boyne be sung when it has ceased to flow;
Here Gallic labours shall advance thy fame,
And here Seneffe3 shall wear another name.
Our late posterity, with secret dread,
Shall view thy battles, and with pleasure read
How, in the bloody field, too near advanced,
The guiltless bullet on thy shoulder glanced.
The race of Nassaus was by Heaven design'd
To curb the proud oppressors of mankind,
To bind the tyrants of the earth with laws,
And fight in every injured nation's cause,
The world's great patriots; they for justice call,
And, as they favour, kingdoms rise or fall.
Our British youth, unused to rough alarms,
Careless of fame, and negligent of arms,
Had long forgot to meditate the foe,
And heard unwarmed the martial trumpet blow;
But now, inspired by thee, with fresh delight
Their swords they brandish, and require the fight,
Renew their ancient conquests on the main,
And act their fathers' triumphs o'er again;
Fired, when they hear how Agincourt was strow'd
With Gallic corps and Cressi swam in blood,
With eager warmth they fight, ambitious all
Who first shall storm the breach, or mount the wall.
In vain the thronging enemy by force
Would clear the ramparts, and repel their course;
They break through all, for William leads the way,
Where fires rage most, and loudest engines play.
Namur's late terrors and destruction show
What William, warmed with just revenge, can do:
Where once a thousand turrets raised on high
Their gilded spires, and glittered in the sky,
An undistinguished heap of dust is found,
And all the pile lies smoking on the ground,
His toils, for no ignoble ends design'd,
Promote the common welfare of mankind;
No wild ambition moves, but Europe's fears,
The cries of orphans, and the widow's tears;
Oppressed religion gives the first alarms,
And injured justice sets him in his arms;
His conquests freedom to the world afford,
And nations bless the labours of his sword.
Thus when the forming Muse would copy forth
A perfect pattern of heroic worth,
She sets a man triumphant in the field,
O'er giants cloven down, and monsters kill'd,
Reeking in blood, and smeared with dust and sweat,
Whilst angry gods conspire to make him great.
Thy navy rides on seas before unpress'd,
And strikes a terror through the haughty East;
Algiers and Tunis from their sultry shore
With horror hear the British engines roar;
Fain from the neighbouring dangers would they run,
And wish themselves still nearer to the sun.
The Gallic ships are in their ports confined,
Denied the common use of sea and wind,
Nor dare again the British strength engage;
Still they remember that destructive rage
Which lately made their trembling host retire,
Stunned with the noise, and wrapt in smoke and fire;
The waves with wide unnumbered wrecks were strow'd,
And planks, and arms, and men, promiscuous flow'd.
Spain's numerous fleet, that perished on our coast,
Could scarce a longer line of battle boast,
The winds could hardly drive them to their fate,
And all the ocean laboured with the weight.
Where'er the waves in restless errors roll,
The sea lies open now to either pole:
Now may we safely use the northern gales,
And in the Polar Circle spread our sails;
Or deep in southern climes, secure from wars,
New lands explore, and
'Seneffe:' lost by William to the French in 1674.
Claverhouse fought with him at this battle.
