But while with fierceft ire Bellona glows;
And Europe rather hopes than fears her fate;
While Britain preffes her afflicted foes;
What horror damps the ftrong, and quells the great!
Whence look the foldier's cheeks dismay'd and pale?
Erft ever dreadful, know they now to dread?
The hoftile troops, I ween, almost prevail;
And the purfuers only not recede.
Alas! their leffen'd rage proclaims their grief!
For, anxious, lo! they croud around their falling chief. XVI.
I thank thee, Fate, exclaims the fierce Bavar;
Let Boya's trumpet grateful Iö's found :
I faw him fall, their thunderbolt of war: -
Ever to vengeance facred be the ground.
Vain wifh fhort joy! the hero mounts again
In greater glory, and with fuller light :
The evening-ftar fo falls into the main,
To rise at morn more prevalently bright.
He rifes fafe, but near, too near his fide,
A good man's grievous lofs, a faithful fervant died.
XVII.
Propitious Mars! the battle is regain'd:
The foe with leffen'd wrath difputes the field:
The Briton fights, by favouring gods sustain❜d :
Freedom muft live; and lawlefs power must yield.
Vain now the tales which fabling poets tell,
That wavering Conquest fill defires to rove!
In Marlborough's camp the goddess knows to dwell:
Long as the hero's life remains her love.
Again France flies, again the duke pursues,
And on Ramilia's plains he Blenheim's fame renews.
XVIII.
Great thanks, O captain great in arms! receive
From thy triumphant country's public voice:
Thy country greater thanks can only give
To Anne, to her who made thofe arms her choice.
Recording Schellenberg's and Blenheim's toils,
We dreaded left thou fhould't thofe toils repeat:
We view'd the palace charg'd with Gallic fpoils,
And in thofe fpoils we thought thy praife compleat.
For never Greek we deem'd, nor Roman knight,
In characters like thefe did e'er his acts indite.
Yet, mindlefs ftill of ease, thy virtue flies A pitch to old and modern times unknown: Thofe goodly deeds which we fo highly prize Imperfect feem, great chief, to thee alone.
Those heights, where William's virtue might have staid, And on the fubject world look'd fafely down,
By Marlborough pass'd, the props and fteps were made, Sublimer yet to raise his queen's renown :
Still gaining more, ftill flighting what he gain'd,
Nought done the hero deem'd, while aught undone remain'd.
When fwift-wing'd Rumour told the mighty Gaul, How Jeffen'd from the field Bavar was fled;
He wept the fwiftness of the champion's fall;
And thus the royal treaty-breaker said :
And lives he yet, the great, the loft Bavar,
Ruin to Gallia in the name of friend?
Tell me, how far has Fortune been fevere?
Has the foe's glory, or our grief, an end?
Remains there, of the fifty thousand loft,
To fave our threaten'd realm, or guard our fhatter'd
To the clofe rock the frighted raven flies,
Soon as the rifing eagle cuts the air :
The thaggy wolf unfeen and trembling lies,
When the hoarfe roar proclaims the lion near.
Ill-ftarr'd did we our forts and lines forfake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conqueft we by ftratagem fhould make :
Our triumph had been founded in our flight.
"Tis ours, by craft and by surprize to gain
'Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.
XXII.
The ancient father of this hoftile brood,
Their boafted Brute, undaunted fnatch'd his gods
From burning Troy, and Xanthus red with blood,
And fix'd on filver Thames his dire abodes :
And this be Troynovante, he faid, the feat
By heaven ordain'd, my fons, your lasting place :
Superior here to all the bolts of fate
Live, mindful of the author of your race,
Whom neither Greece, nor war, nor want, nor flame, Nor great'Peleides' arm, nor Juno's rage, could tame. XXIII. Their
Their Tudors hence, and Stuarts offspring flow:
Hence Edward, dreadful with his sable shield,
Talbot to Gallia's power eternal foe,
And Seymour, fam'd in council or in field:
Hence Nevil, great to settle or dethrone,
And Drake, and Ca'ndish, terrors of the sea:
Hence Butler's fons, o'er land and ocean known,
Herbert's and Churchill's warring progeny:
Hence the long roll which Gallia fhould conceal :
For, oh! who, vanquish'd, loves the victor's fame to
Envy'd Britannia, sturdy as the oak,
Which on her mountain-top fhe proudly bears,
Eludes the ax, and sprouts against the stroke;
Strong from her wounds, and greater by her wars.
And as thofe teeth, which Cadmus fow'd in earth,
Produc'd new youth, and furnish'd fresh fupplies :
So with young vigour, and fucceeding birth,
Her loffes more than recompens'd arife;
And every age fhe with a race is crown'd,
For letters more polite, in battles more renown'd.
Obftinate power, whom nothing can repel;
Not the fierce Saxon, nor the cruel Dane,
Nor deep impreffion of the Norman fteel,
Nor Europe's force amafs'd by envious Spain."
Nor France on universal sway intent,
Oft' breaking leagues, and oft' renewing wars;
Nor (frequent bane of weaken'd government)
Their own inteftine feuds and mutual jars :
Thofe feuds and jars, in which I trufted more,
Than in my troops, and fleets, and all the Gallic power.
XXVI.
To fruitful Rheims, or fair Lutetia's gate,
What tidings fhall the meffenger convey?
Shall the loud herald our fuccefs relate,
Or mitred prieft appoint the folemn day?
Alas! my praises they no more must sing;
They to my statue now must bow no more :
Broken, repuls'd is their immortal king:
Fallen, fallen for ever, is the Gallic power.
The Woman Chief is mafter of the war:
Earth she has freed by arms, and vanquish'd Heaven by
While thus the ruin'd foe's defpair commends
Thy council and thy deed, victorious Queen,
What fhall thy fubjects fay, and what thy friends?
How shall thy triumphs in our joy be seen?
Oh! deign to let the eldest of the Nine
Recite Britannia great, and Gallia free:
Oh! with her fifter Sculpture let her join
To raise, great Anne, the monument to thee;
To thee, of all our good the facred fpring;
To thee, our dearest dread; to thee, our fofter King.
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