The Poems of Edmund Waller :: :: University of Virginia Library

Now had his Highness bid farewell to Spain,
And reached the sphere of his own power, the main;
With British bounty in his ship he feasts
The Hesperian princes, his amazed guests
To find that watery wilderness exceed
The entertainment of their great Madrid.
Healths to both kings, attended with the roar
Of cannons, echoed from the affrighted shore,
With loud resemblance of his thunder, prove
Bacchus the seed of cloud-compelling Jove;
While to his harp divine Arion sings
The loves and conquests of our Albion kings.

Of the Fourth Edward was his noble song,
Fierce, goodly, valiant, beautiful, and young;

He rent the crown from vanquished Henry's head,
Raised the White Rose, and trampled on the Red;
Till love, triumphing o'er the victor's pride,
Brought Mars and Warwick to the conquered side;
Neglected Warwick (whose bold hand, like Fate,
Gives and resumes the sceptre of our state)
Woos for his master; and with double shame,
Himself deluded, mocks the princely dame,
The Lady Bona, whom just anger burns,
And foreign war with civil rage returns.
Ah! spare your swords, where beauty is to blame;
Love gave the affront, and must repair the same;
When France shall boast of her, whose conquering eyes
Have made the best of English hearts their prize;
Have power to alter the decrees of Fate,
And change again the counsels of our state.

What the prophetic Muse intends, alone
To him that feels the secret wound is known.

With the sweet sound of this harmonious lay
About the keel delighted dolphins play,
Too sure a sign of sea's ensuing rage,
Which must anon this royal troop engage;
To whom soft sleep seems more secure and sweet,
Within the town commanded by our fleet.

These mighty peers placed in the gilded barge,
Proud with the burden of so brave a charge,
With painted oars the youths begin to sweep
Neptune's smooth face, and cleave the yielding deep;

Which soon becomes the seat of sudden war
Between the wind and tide that fiercely jar.
As when a sort of lusty shepherds try
Their force at football, care of victory
Makes them salute so rudely breast to breast,
That their encounters seem too rough for jest;
They ply their feet, and still the restless ball,
Tossed to and fro, is urged by them all:
So fares the doubtful barge 'twixt tide and winds,
And like effect of their contention finds.
Yet the bold Britons still securely rowed;
Charles and his virtue was their sacred load;
Than which a greater pledge Heaven could not give,
That the good boat this tempest should outlive.

But storms increase, and now no hope of grace
Among them shines, save in the Prince's face;
The rest resign their courage, skill, and sight,
To danger, horror, and unwelcome night.
The gentle vessel (wont with state and pride
On the smooth back of silver Thames to ride)
Wanders astonished in the angry main,
As Titan's car did, while the golden rein
Filled the young hand of his adventurous son,
When the whole world an equal hazard run
To this of ours, the light of whose desire
Waves threaten now, as that was scared by fire.
The impatient sea grows impotent and raves,

That, night assisting, his impetuous waves
Should find resistance from so light a thing;
These surges ruin, those our safety bring.
The oppressed vessel doth the charge abide,
Only because assailed on every side;
So men with rage and passion set on fire,
Trembling for haste, impeach their mad desire.

The pale Iberians had expired with fear,
But that their wonder did divert their care,
To see the Prince with danger moved no more
Than with the pleasures of their court before;
Godlike his courage seemed, whom nor delight
Could soften, nor the face of death affright.
Next to the power of making tempests cease,
Was in that storm to have so calm a peace.
Great Maro could no greater tempest feign,
When the loud winds usurping on the main
For angry Juno, laboured to destroy
The hated relics of confounded Troy;
His bold Æneas, on like billows tossed
In a tall ship, and all his country lost,
Dissolves with fear; and both his hands upheld,
Proclaims them happy whom the Greeks had quelled
In honourable fight; our hero, set
In a small shallop, Fortune in his debt,
So near a hope of crowns and sceptres, more
Than ever Priam, when he flourished, wore;
His loins yet full of ungot princes, all
His glory in the bud, lets nothing fall

That argues fear; if any thought annoys
The gallant youth, 'tis love's untasted joys,
And dear remembrance of that fatal glance,
For which he lately pawned his heart in France;
Where he had seen a brighter nymph than she
That sprung out of his present foe, the sea.
That noble ardour, more than mortal fire,
The conquered ocean could not make expire;
Nor angry Thetis raise her waves above
The heroic Prince's courage or his love;
'Twas indignation, and not fear he felt,
The shrine should perish where that image dwelt.
Ah, Love forbid! the noblest of thy train
Should not survive to let her know his pain;
Who nor his peril minding nor his flame,
Is entertained with some less serious game,
Among the bright nymphs of the Gallic court,
All highly born, obsequious to her sport;
They roses seem, which in their early pride
But half reveal, and half their beauties hide;
She the glad morning, which her beams does throw
Upon their smiling leaves, and gilds them so;
Like bright Aurora, whose refulgent ray
Foretells the fervour of ensuing day,
And warns the shepherd with his flocks retreat
To leafy shadows from the threatened heat.

From Cupid's string of many shafts, that fled

Winged with those plumes which noble Fame had shed,
As through the wondering world she flew, and told
Of his adventures, haughty, brave, and bold;
Some had already touched the royal maid,
But Love's first summons seldom are obeyed;
Light was the wound, the Prince's care unknown,
She might not, would not, yet reveal her own.
His glorious name had so possessed her ears,
That with delight those antique tales she hears
Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
As with his story best resemblance hold.
And now she views, as on the wall it hung,
What old Musæus so divinely sung;
Which art with life and love did so inspire,
That she discerns and favours that desire,
Which there provokes the adventurous youth to swim,
And in Leander's danger pities him;
Whose not new love alone, but fortune, seeks
To frame his story like that amorous Greek's.
For from the stern of some good ship appears
A friendly light, which moderates their fears;
New courage from reviving hope they take,
And climbing o'er the waves that taper make,
On which the hope of all their lives depends,
As his on that fair Hero's hand extends.
The ship at anchor, like a fixed rock,

Breaks the proud billows which her large sides knock;
Whose rage restrained, foaming higher swells,
And from her port the weary barge repels,
Threatening to make her, forced out again,
Repeat the dangers of the troubled main.
Twice was the cable hurled in vain; the Fates
Would not be moved for our sister states;
For England is the third successful throw,
And then the genius of that land they know,
Whose prince must be (as their own books devise)
Lord of the scene where now his danger lies.

Well sung the Roman bard, “All human things
Of dearest value hang on slender strings.”
O see the then sole hope, and, in design
Of Heaven, our joy, supported by a line!
Which for that instant was Heaven's care, above
The chain that's fixed to the throne of Jove,
On which the fabric of our world depends;
One link dissolved, the whole creation ends.