A POEM BEING An Essay upon the present War with THE DUTCH Since the first Battle and Victory obtained by His Highness Royal June 3. 1665. Continued to and upon the late Happy Victory OBTAINED BY His Majesty's Forces at Sea under the conduct of his Highness' Prince Rupert and his Grace the Duke of Albemarle July 25. 1666. By JOHN EAMES Haec in Primitiis Tentamina parva manebunt Juven LONDON Printed for Henry Herringman and are to be sold at his Shop at the Sign of the Anchor on the Lower walk of the New Exchange 1666. A POEM Being an Assay upon the present War with THE DUTCH Since the first Battle and Victory obtained by HIS HIGHNESS ROYAL June 3. 1665. SCarce the black Curtains of the Night were spread When drowsy Poppy round my Temples shed A solemn sleep from whose dark womb a dream The soul from her close mansion did redeem This eager vapour arched the burnished Sky From either Pole extended to the eye Thence the glad Sun had banished dreary night And no dull shadow durst impeach his light The Sea I saw as calm as when the Wind Sports with the Spring and to soft Buds is kind Whilst Thetis rocked on wanton Billows plays And mirth through shining troops of Nymphs conveys Neptune and all that watery host beside In triumph o'er that Azure Empire ride This Pompous show of wonder and delight Ushers a winged Forest to my sight Whose Aspect joyful characters betrayed For a late Combat which that triumph made It was the Navy on the Ocean spread Which from pursuing of the Dutch was led By ROYAL YORK whose awful Brows retain The growing Emblems of the conquered Main And whilst ambitious Gales this prospect blew To the glad Ports my fettered eyes pursue Till shouts and thunder echoed from the Shore The Soul to her first faculties restore Awaked though not like those whose sullen phlegm Draws sacred precepts from a guilty dream My Numbers are encouraged to relate The wand'ring homage of the Belgian State How from remotest shores Atonements come And centre in our Channel as their home Whilst fear instructs their anger to forsake The Strait as Fowls abhor Avernus Lake How they believe the Pole and think to find No Storm to urge the murmurs of their mind Trusting the North as the securer way They court the night for treasures of the day Sweet Spices Gums and all the Sun can boast Or the Indulgence of the Indian Coast Pay tribute to their hopes which lest they may Perish near home in withered Norway stay Where that rough satire Bergen is possessed Of the rich spoils of the luxurious East The Port was the dark burden of that womb Whose liquid bowels are the greedy tomb Of trade and hope by Art improved to be From Foes a Refuge boisterous Winds and Sea The worth and safety though not equal Fate Of this fair prize might Jason's emulate That yellow fleece Bulls hoofed with thunder kept And a more watchful guard that never slept This cloistered in the hostile Harbour lay Maintained by Castles and a treacherous way The English that this proud return did wait More conscious of revenge than guilty fate Attempt with one bold Squadron of their Fleet To render vows though not their hopes complete Obsequious to their courage they dispense Through the sad lake a bloody influence Which tears in sight of the unfaithful shore And spoils the fraught we would have saved before Art fury all to ruin had designed Those joys of peace but the mamoured wind Which like a Phoenix in that nest would lie And with a surfeit of those odours die Thus jealous grown does with full cheeks oppose Those flames which ships dissembled to our foes Retreating thence as Lions which some Wile Or Stratagem did of their Prey beguile We cleave the briny Element to meet Dodona sacred to our Jove the Fleet. The Dutch at home improve their Hulls with Men And Rigg their vanquished Ruins out again Not to impeach our bays but to Convoy The frighted Barks we laboured to destroy Arrived they tell their joy and wing their Sails With greeting shouts that breath conspiring Gales When Heaven to show how frail men's passions are How soon proud hope is changed to sad despair Contracts his brow and buries in a cloud The world's bright Eye whilst Aeolus aloud Proclaims his challenge through the troubled Main That now repeats their danger once again The clouds drawn down upon the labouring deep Divide as Shepherds scattered from their Sheep The armed Convoys from the wealthy Fleet Which beg from the wild Contest a retreat With sighs that break th' abortive womb of fear When English Frigates louder storms appear Some the loud summons of our Cannon wait Others with dread and silence watch their fate Those that got safe and 'scapt both Enemies Paleness and grief entitled to the Prize So shiptwrackt Men which safely swim to shore Their treasures in hoarse Surges lost deplore Now Titan in his oblique course had strayed From the just balance of the days and made The sullen brow of Winter to maintain The privilege of Naval wars in vain For the incensed Dutch invade the Skies And their wise rage the blackest storm defies Cloudy Orion with their Fleet they dare And Regiments of fish disbanded are To their revenge and fate loud Engines roar On bleating  objects on the shore Thus we Caligula in Records view His Legions in Battalia to subdue The harmless Ocean when their Helmets bore Trophies of Cockle from our Neighbour shore The aged Solstice gone new months supply The teeming Earth with visits from the sky Soft Zephyrs breathing on the opening Scene Of fragrancy with blushing vestures green The softer bosom of the Earth is charged With buds from blossoms tenderly enlarged The painted flowers with their early pride Steal from their prisons to adorn the bride Nature whose youth propensive to increase And celebrate the Festivals of Peace Does with unwilling looks new vigour give When war's cold embers in fresh flames do live But time and war one strict resemblance hold And in Eccentrick Circles both are rolled Strife moves a milder course when leaves appear And silent sleeps when Storms infest the Year The Spring our Navy from its moist abode To Neptune's spacious Courts invites abroad Where floating thus sick fortune proved unkind Another way one Squadron is designed The wary Dutch the silent Ocean shade In Castles lined with Nations for their aid So bold hope seemed espoused and banished fear The Duke still constant in them both drew near His courage like a Rock frowns on the Main Storms in their wildest fury to restrain Approached the business of the day is plied With terror noise and death on either side In Sable shades of rolling smoke they fight Till they Anticipate the wings of night And when the stifled Sun had cleansed his beams From their pollution in th' Hesperian streams Aurora Heaven with guilded lustres graced Which were again by Stygian rage defaced The Belgian courage shone like flames which rise From wood and not improved by Bellws dies The English burns like oil nor needs the Name Of wind or wine-improvements to a flame Nor ebbs and flows with fortunes erring tides But 'bove the power of her Empire rides So small our force that could we own her frown The bold Attempt might teach the world Renown The Hero managed by his prowess steers And the safe bulwark of his Charge appears His Conduct such his Antique Laurels now Spread to defend as well as Grace his brow Want to reprove the clamours of the sky Here his bold wreaths a louder fate defy Now shifts the doubtful Scene and we descry The message of new hopes hang in the sky So shows the radiant Ensign of the day When Storms submit to his Majestic ray The Prince appears with whom whilst we unite The Dutch like Thiefs are Victors made by flight With full spread Sails they leave the dreadful News Panting Revenge as hastily pursues And summons to repeat the Tragick-Play Whilst the confused Sea and Sun obey The Emphasis of rage and all things there Dissolved from their first principals appear The colder Element becomes the Stage On which the first dares improve his rage The heavy bowels of the Earth do fly As though they centred upward through the Sky Those fatal drugs which wretched Arts compose To wing those fates that pregnant Guns enclose To the dull Earth once quiet Tenants were Now in thick Mists inhabiting the Air Obstruct the passage of prevailing fire Which lost in its own bowels climbs no higher Those stately Piles of wonder and delight Which on the rolling Billows did invite The silver-footed Nymphs to feast their eyes And doubt them of their watery Deities ●●●nt stained with gore and loud with groans appear No more their objects of delight but fear There flaming Aetna and Vesuvius seem Belching out smoke and fire on the stream The Portholes flames and iron showers dispense As burning Caverns do curled Cinders thence Here burning Pines sad Funeral Rites supply There Tumults of one wound together die Some climb the waves and in their Bowels meet The fate from which their hasty fears retreat Confusion spreads her Sable Plumes as Night And clouds obscure the Canopy of light Through which black vail so burning Meteors blaze And Mortals with approaching ills amaze Shines Rupert like another Jove from whom The Dutch by thunder do receive their doom His floating Tower is the sphere which hides Whole flakes of dying fury in its sides His Martial influence by Heaven sent Taught the Capricious Goddess to repent So the Dictaean God did Iris send When victory to either side should bend Live the blessed Theme of the Castalian Spring You that were made your Countries Offerring Though dying in a crowd may every Name Swell the immortal Heraldry of fame Whose wings now open to salute our shore Laden with homage as the year before Whilst the success mysterious Holland wise ●n figures by Synecdoche belies And with Italian Arts betrays the world Through which her subtle Characters are hurled Nor had the bays obeyed the doubtful laws Of disputation whilst the weary Cause interest and Envy urge but the dispute Must have slept quiet in a loud pursuit Had not those lofty Sirs which crowned of late ●ome mighty Grove stooped to their second Fate And prostrate on the Deck disarmed the wind And the two Heroes to their Rage confined Whilst the Batavians with their shattered Fleet First leave the Seas and to their Ports retreat PAle Phoebe had not twice her silver gleams Of light replenished by her Brother's Beams When the Dutch Navy reached the British Coasts Proud to deceive the Christian World with boasts To mend the Errors of this fatal Chance After some time our ready Sails advance While the dull Belgians with a guilty look Like one in his own politics mistook Survey the motion of this dreadful Fleet By which they must their shame or ruin meet They gaze like men whose wand'ring sight betrayed By the vast distance of the object made To think that but some rising Bank which nigh Results a Hill whose Forehead beats the Sky At Sea the Day propitious to their Rage These floating Armies furiously engage Whilst Arctic and Antarctic Kingdoms wait With Continents between to know the Fate Of the loud Combat and the Nations who Parcel the Regions which they ne'er subdue So Pompey's Gallant did old Rome divide When the Pharsalian Victor spoiled their pride Not many Hours blood and ruin breathed The waves discoloured human Bowels sheathed With flying Balls but triumph and success With all their Marks our Generals do bless These Heroes lodged within that ample Frame Whose Pride displays our mighty Monarch's Name No Vulgar Crowds fit for their Nobe Rage The Chieftain of the Belgian Fleet engage Courage does Heaven oblige and such Attempts Like future Faith from threatened Harms exempts Now Death on the pale wings of lightning flies And fatal storms of Thunder wound the Skies The Royal ship such heavy Ruins throws De Ruyter can no longer bear the blows But spreads his Canvas to entreat the wind From following foes security to find Some as they fly we seize the rest that reach Their Ports the fatal Overthrow do preach With which alarmed their Beacons burn on shore Afraid of what they threatened us before One Squadron of their Fleet by Heaven designed To a more Cruel Fate remains behind With which the Admiral of the blue contends Who burns and sinks and with his Ordnance rends Till the maimed Remnant with obedient Sails Implores the succours of assisting Gales Here one might see those solid Planks the Grace And latest Pride of Thames pursue the Chase Whilst the Ambitious Air before their Ports With our Victorious Flags and Standart sports The Chieftains now dispencing as they please The fate of all that float the vanquished Seas To the KING upon the same GREAT SIR to whom as the first source we owe What by degrees descends on us below Olympus owns a Triumph in Your Name And echoes to the joy our shouts proclaim Nations will now their Neutral Arts forget As streams their Currents in one Ocean met Spain will desert her Phlegm to reach that shore Whose Kindness ruined Nations can restore France that forgot her Annals may advise With her old Ruins and too late grow wise Denmark whose white and airy Mountains dare Sin to another Babel in the Air Her angry Rocks may quarrel with the Sea But from Your Influence cannot be free Now Amphitrite is Your own You may Teach Kingdoms with Your Trident to obey The Gordian Knots their Interests have tied Your Power is extended to divide Whilst Your Victorous Frigates press the Main Your Title to that Empire to maintain FINIS