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The Poems of Edmund Waller

Edited by G. Thorn Drury

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OF SALLE.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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13

OF SALLE.

Of Jason, Theseus, and such worthies old,
Light seem the tales antiquity has told;
Such beasts and monsters as their force oppressed,
Some places only, and some times, infest.
Salle, that scorned all power and laws of men,
Goods with their owners hurrying to their den,
And future ages threatening with a rude
And savage race, successively renewed;
Their king despising with rebellious pride,
And foes professed to all the world beside;
This pest of mankind gives our hero fame,
And through the obliged world dilates his name.
The Prophet once to cruel Agag said,
“As thy fierce sword has mothers childless made,
So shall the sword make thine;” and with that word
He hewed the man in pieces with his sword.
Just Charles-like measure has returned to these
Whose Pagan hands had stained the troubled seas;
With ships they made the spoiled merchant mourn;
With ships their city and themselves are torn.

14

One squadron of our winged castles sent,
O'erthrew their fort, and all their navy rent;
For not content the dangers to increase,
And act the part of tempests in the seas,
Like hungry wolves, these pirates from our shore
Whole flocks of sheep, and ravished cattle bore.
Safely they might on other nations prey,—
Fools to provoke the sovereign of the sea!
Mad Cacus so, whom like ill fate persuades,
The herd of fair Alcmena's seed invades,
Who for revenge, and mortals' glad relief,
Sacked the dark cave, and crushed that horrid thief.
Morocco's monarch, wondering at this fact,
Save that his presence his affairs exact,
Had come in person to have seen and known
The injured world's revenger and his own.
Hither he sends the chief among his peers,
Who in his bark proportioned presents bears,
To the renowned for piety and force,
Poor captives manumised, and matchless horse.