Like hunted caftors, confcious of their store, Their way-laid wealth to Norway's coasts they bring:
There first the North's cold bofom fpices bore, And winter brooded on the eastern spring.
By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey, Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert
And round about their murdering cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eye.
Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake the unequal war:
Seven ships alone, by which the port is barr'd,
Befiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.
28.
These fight like husbands, but like lovers those :
These fain would keep, and those more fain
And to fuch height their frantic paffion grows,
That what both love, both hazard to de
Amidst whole heaps of fpices lights a ball,
And now their odours arm'd against them fly:
Some preciously by shatter'd porcelain fall,
And fome by aromatic splinters die.
30.
And though by tempefts of the prize bereft,
In heaven's inclemency fome ease we find :
Our foes we vanquish'd by our valour left,
And only yielded to the feas and wind.
Nor wholly loft we fo deferv'd a prey;
For ftorms repenting part of it restor❜d:
Which as a tribute from the Baltic fea,
The British ocean fent her mighty lord.
Go mortals now and vex yourselves in vain
For wealth, which fo uncertainly must come:
When what was brought so far, and with such pain,
Was only kept to lose it nearer home.
The fon, who twice three months on th'ocean tost,
Prepar'd to tell what he had pafs'd before,
Now fees in English fhips the Holland coast,
And parents arms, in vain, ftretch'd from the shore.
This careful' husband had been long away,
Whom his chafte wife and little children mourn;
Who on their fingers learn'd to tell the day
On which their father promis'd to return.
Such are the proud defigns of human-kind,
And so we fuffer fhipwreck every where!
Alas, what port can fuch a pilot find,
Who in the night of fate must blindly steer!
36.
The undistinguish'd feeds of good and ill,
Heaven in his bofom from our knowlege 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 :
Alas, that he should teach the English first,
That fraud and avarice in the church could reign!
38.
Happy, who never truft a ftranger's will,
Whofe friendship's in his intereft understood!
Since money given but tempts him to be ill,
When pow'r is too remote to make him good.
VOL. I.
Till now, alone the mighty nations strove ;
The reft, at gaze, without the lifts did stand:
And threatning France, plac'd 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 pow'r t'enjoy;
Whose noiseful valour does no foe invade,
And weak affiftance will his friends destroy.
Offended that we fought without his leave,
He takes this time his fecret hate to fhew:
Which Charles does with a mind fo calm receive,
As one that neither feeks nor fhuns his foe.
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 filently confefs that one more brave.
43.
Lewis had chas'd the English from his shore?
But Charles the French as fubjects does invite: Would heaven for each fome Solomon reftore,
Who, by their mercy, may decide their right.
Were fubjects fo but only by their choice,
And not from birth did forc'd dominion take,
Our prince alone would have the public voice;
And all his neighbours realms would defcrts make.
45.
He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
Which without rashness he began before:
As honour made him firft the danger chufe,
So ftill he makes it good on virtue's score.
46.
The doubled charge his fubjects love fupplies,
Who in that bounty to themselves are kind :
So glad Egyptians fee their Nilus rife,
And in his plenty their abundance find.
With equal pow'r he does two chiefs create,
Two fuch as each feem'd worthieft when alone; Each able to fuftain 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 int'reft too the same, Like mighty partners equally they raise.
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