VERSES TO HER ROYAL HIGHNESS THE DUCHESS,

On the Memorable Victory gained by the Duke against the Hollanders, June 3, 1665, and on her Journey afterwards into the North.

MADAM,

WHEN for our sakes your hero you resigned

To swelling seas and every faithless wind,

When you released his courage and set free
A valour fatal to the enemy,

You lodged your country's cares within your breast,
The mansion where soft love should only rest,
And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,
The noblest conquest you had gained at home.
Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!
Your honour gave us what your love denied:
And 'twas for him much easier to subdue
Those foes he fought with than to part from you.
That glorious day, which two such navies saw
As each unmatched might to the world give law,
Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,
Held to them both the trident of the sea:

The winds were hushed, the waves in ranks were cast

As awfully as when God's people past,

Those yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,

These where the wealth of nations ought to flow.

Then with the Duke your Highness ruled the day;
While all the brave did his command obey,
The fair and pious under you did pray.

25

How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide
You bribed to combat on the English side.
Thus to your much-loved lord you did convey
An unknown succour, sent the nearest way;
New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,
(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought,)
While from afar we heard the cannon play,
Like distant thunder on a shiny day.

D

30

35

For absent friends we were ashamed to fear
When we considered what you ventured there.
Ships, men, and arms our country might restore,
But such a leader could supply no more.

5 With generous thoughts of conquest he did burn,
Yet fought not more to vanquish than return.
Fortune and victory he did pursue

To bring them as his slaves to wait on you:
Thus beauty ravished the rewards of fame
10 And the fair triumphed when the brave o'ercame.
Then, as you meant to spread another way
By land your conquests far as his by sea,
Leaving our southern clime, you marched along
The stubborn North, ten thousand Cupids strong.
15 Like Commons, the nobility resort

In crowding heaps to fill your moving court:
To welcome your approach the vulgar run,
Like some new envoy from the distant sun,
And country beauties by their lovers go,
20 Blessing themselves and wondering at the show.
So, when the new-born phoenix first is seen,
Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,
And while she makes her progress through the East,
From every grove her numerous train's increast;
25 Each poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

And now, Sir, 'tis time I should relieve you from the tedious length of this account. You have better and more profitable employment for your hours, and I wrong the 30 public to detain you longer. In conclusion, I must leave my poem to you with all its faults, which I hope to find fewer in the printing by your emendations. I know you are not of the number of those, of whom the younger Pliny speaks; Nec sunt parum multi, qui carpere amicos suos judicium 35 vocant: I am rather too secure of you on that side. Your candour in pardoning my errors may make you more remiss in correcting them; if you will not withal consider that they

come into the world with your approbation, and through your hands. I beg from you the greatest favour you can confer upon an absent person, since I repose upon your management what is dearest to me, my fame and reputation; and, therefore, I hope it will stir you up to make my poem 5 fairer by many of your blots. If not, you know the story of the gamester who married the rich man's daughter and, when her father denied the portion, christened all the children by his surname, that, if in conclusion they must beg, they should do so by one name as well as by the other. But 10 since the reproach of my faults will light on you, 'tis but reason I should do you that justice to the readers to let them know, that, if there be anything tolerable in this poem, they owe the argument to your choice, the writing to your encouragement, the correction to your judgment, and the 15 care of it to your friendship, to which he must ever acknowledge himself to owe all things who is,

Sir,

The most obedient

and most faithful of your servants,

From Charlton, in Wiltshire,

Nov. 10, 1666.

JOHN DRYDEN.

ANNUS MIRABILIS:

THE YEAR OF WONDERS, 1666.

I

IN thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad;
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own,
Our King they courted and our merchants awed.

2

Trade, which like blood should circularly flow,

Stopped in their channels, found its freedom lost: Thither the wealth of all the world did go,

And seemed but shipwracked on so base a coast.

3

For them alone the heavens had kindly heat,
In eastern quarries a ripening precious dew;
For them the Idumæan balm did sweat
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4

The sun but seemed the labourer of their year;
Each wexing moon" supplied her watery store
To swell those tides which from the Line did bear
Their brim-full vessels to the Belgian shore.

5

Thus mighty in her ships stood Carthage long

And swept the riches of the world from far, Yet stooped to Rome, less wealthy but more strong; And this may prove our second Punic war.

a In eastern quarries. Precious stones at first are dew condensed, and hardened by the warmth of the sun or subterranean fires.

b Each wexing moon. According to their opinions who think that great heap of the waters under the Line is depressed into tides by the moon toward the poles.