Fierce, goodly, young!  Mars he resembles, when 209
Jove sends him down to scourge perfidious men;
Such as with foul ingratitude have paid
Both those that led, and those that gave them aid. 
Where he gives on, disposing of their fates,
Terror and death on his loud cannon waits,
With which he pleads his brother’s cause so well,
He shakes the throne to which he does appeal. 
The sea with spoils his angry bullets strow,
Widows and orphans making as they go;
Before his ship fragments of vessels torn,
Flags, arms, and Belgian carcasses are borne; 220
And his despairing foes, to flight inclined,
Spread all their canvas to invite the wind. 
So the rude Boreas, where he lists to blow,
Makes clouds above, and billows fly below,
Beating the shore; and, with a boist’rous rage,
Does heaven at once, and earth, and sea engage.

The Dutch, elsewhere, did through the wat’ry field
Perform enough to have made others yield;
But English courage, growing as they fight,
In danger, noise, and slaughter, takes delight; 230
Their bloody task, unwearied still, they ply,
Only restrain’d by death, or victory. 
Iron and lead, from earth’s dark entrails torn,
Like showers of hail from either side are borne;
So high the rage of wretched mortals goes,
Hurling their mother’s bowels at their foes! 
Ingenious to their ruin, every age
Improves the arts and instruments of rage. 
Death-hast’ning ills Nature enough has sent,
And yet men still a thousand more invent! 240

But Bacchus now, which led the Belgians on,
So fierce at first, to favour us begun;
Brandy and wine (their wonted friends) at length
Render them useless, and betray their strength. 
So corn in fields, and in the garden flowers,
Revive and raise themselves with mod’rate showers;
But overcharged with never-ceasing rain,
Become too moist, and bend their heads again. 
Their reeling ships on one another fall,
Without a foe, enough to ruin all. 250
Of this disorder, and the favouring wind,
The watchful English such advantage find,
Ships fraught with fire among the heap they throw,
And up the so-entangled Belgians blow. 
The flame invades the powder-rooms, and then,
Their guns shoot bullets, and their vessels men. 
The scorch’d Batavians on the billows float,
Sent from their own, to pass in Charon’s boat.

And now, our royal Admiral success
(With all the marks of victory) does bless; 260
The burning ships, the taken, and the slain,
Proclaim his triumph o’er the conquer’d main. 
Nearer to Holland, as their hasty flight
Carries the noise and tumult of the fight,
His cannons’ roar, forerunner of his fame,
Makes their Hague tremble, and their Amsterdam;