Classic Poem

Robbed of our rights, and by such water-rats?
We'll doff their heads, if they won't doff their hats.
Affront too Hogen Mogen to endure!
'Tis time to box these butter-boxes sure.
If they the flag's undoubted right deny us,
Who won't strike to us, must be stricken by us.
A crew of boors and sooterkins that know
Themselves they to our blood and valor owe;
Did we for this knock off their Spanish fetters,
To make 'em able to abuse their betters?
If at this rate they rave, I think 'tis good
Not to omit the fall, but let them blood.
Rouse then, heroic Britains, 'tis not words
But wounds, must work with leather-apron lords.
Since they are deaf, to them your meaning break
With mouths of brass, that words of iron speak;
I hope we shall to purpose the next bout
Cure 'em, as we did Opdam, of the gout.
And when i'th'bottom of the sea they come,
They'll have enough of Mare Liberum .
Our brandished steel, though now they seem so tall,
Shall make 'em lower than Low Country fall.
But they'll ere long come to themselves, you'll see,
When we in earnest are at snick-a-snee;
When once the boors perceive our swords are drawn,
And we converting are those boors to brawn.
Methinks the ruin of their Belgic banners,
Last fight almost as ragged as their manners,
Might have persuaded 'em to better things,
Than be so saucy to their betters, kings.
Is it of wealth they are so proud become? —
James has a wain, I hope, to fetch it home,
And with it pay himself his just arrears
Of fishing tribute for this hundred years,
That we may say, as all the store comes in,
The Dutch, alas, have but our factors been.
They fathom sea and land; we, when we please,
Have both the Indies brought to our own seas.
For rich, and proud, they bring in ships by shoals,
And then we humble'em to save their souls.
Pox of their pictures! if we had 'em here,
We'd find 'em frames at Tyburn, or elsewhere.
The next they draw, be it their admirals
Transpeciated into fins and scales;
Or, which would do as well, draw if they please,
Opdam, with th' seven sinking provinces;
Or draw their captains from the conquering main,
First beaten home, then beaten back again;
And after this so just, though fatal strife,
Draw their dead boors again unto the life.
Lastly, remember, to prevent all laughter,
Drawing goes first, but hanging follows after.
If then lampooning thus be their undoing,
Who pities them that purchase their own ruin?
Or will hereafter trust their treacheries,
Until they leave their heads for hostages?
For, as the proverb has of women said,
" Believe 'em not, nay, though you'd swear they're dead. "
The Dutch are stubborn, and will yield not fruit,
Till, like the walnut tree, ye beat 'em to't.

To the King

I see an age when, after some few years,
And revolutions of the slow paced spheres;
These days shall be 'bove others far esteemed,
And like the world's great conquerors be deemed.
The names of Caesar, and feigned Paladin,
Grav'n in Time's surly brows, in wrinkled Time,
Shall by this prince's name be passed as far
As meteors are by the Idalian star;
For to Great Britain's Isle thou shalt restore
Her Mare Clausum , guard her pearly shore;
The lions passant of th' Dutch bands shall free,
To the true owner of the lilies three.
The seas shall shrink; shake shall the spacious earth,
And tremble in her chamber, like pale death.
Thy thund'ring cannons shall proclaim to all
Great Britain's glory, and proud Holland's fall.
Run on, brave prince, thy course in glory's way;
The end the life, the evening crowns the day.
Reap worth on worth, and strongly soar above
Those heights which made the world thee first to love.
Surmount thyself, and make thy actions past
Be but as gleams or lightnings of thy last.
Let them exceed those of thy younger time,
As far as autumn doth the flow'ry prime;
So ever gold and bays thy brow adorn,
So never Time may see thy race out-worn;
So of thine own still may thou be desired,
Of Holland feared, and by the world admired;
Till thy great deeds all former deeds surmount:
Thou'st quelled the Nimrods of our Hellespont.
So may his high exploits at last make even
With earth his honor, glory with the Heaven.