University of Virginia Library

Could Xerxes here have sate upon an hill,
To see these warriors, he would not still
Fondly lament, nor lavish out a teare
Because they could not live an hundred yeare,
But melt into just passion away
Because they could not live out all that day.
Now might you have beheld the fiery horse
Proud of his owne, and of his Masters force.
Robb'd of his Master, whom you now might see
Running, as if twere after Liberty,
Or you'd conceive, had you but seene the race
That 'twas no more a battle, but a chase.
No stroke falls idle, nay they are so neere;
They need not strike at all: death is caus'd here
By their bad neighbourhood, the whole and sound
You might have seene here dead without a wound.
To save the guilt and labour of the sword,
Bodies to bodies their owne ends afford.
Now nothing but the dust is to be seene
Which like so many Emblems flyes betweene
They mingled armies, which in silence sayes,
They are no better then the motes they raise,
Thē those poore Atomes: but they think to shrowde
Their acts from sight of heav'n under that cloud,
And therefore doe their utmost: yet as though
Those hands were sluggish, or this fury slow,
The trumpets chid them to a lustier guilt,
And the loud drums proclaim'd, you have not spile
Blood enough yet: O what were they that found
Out first the use and malice of that sound?
Which makes us kill with greedinesse, and when
Tis the Corrupted Nature of most men
Hardly to yeeld unto the destitute,
These will not suffer us to heare their suite.
This drowns the groanes: but now both armies reele,
Now this gives backe some ground, now that doth feele
That it is prest too hardly. Thus the seas
When over it the angry winds doe please
To exercise their fury, doe not know
What course to take, nor whither they should flow:
This wave breakes that, and then another blast
Makes that the conqueror, which was conquerd last.