Classic Poem

For Drawing the History of Our Naval Business

In Imitation of Mr. Waller.

navem si poscat sibi peronatus arator

luciferi rudis, exclamet Melicerta perisse

frontem de rebus.

— Persius, Satire 5, 102 04.

London, April 1666

Nay, Painter, if thou dar'st design that fight
Which Waller only courage had to write,
If thy bold hand can, without shaking, draw
What e'en the actors trembled when they saw
(Enough to make thy colors change like theirs
And all thy pencils bristle like their hairs)
First, in fit distance of the prospect main,
Paint Allin tilting at the coast of Spain:
Heroic act, and never heard till now,
Stemming of Herc'les' Pillars with his prow!
And how two ships he left the hills to waft,
And with new sea-marks Dover and Calais graft.

Epigraph: Translated as follows in Dryden's version: The high-shoed plowman, should he quit
the land,
To take the pilot's rudder in his hand
Artless of stars, and of the moving sand,
The gods would leave him to the waves and wind
And think all shame was lost in humankind.

Next, let the flaming London come in view,
Like Nero's Rome, burnt to rebuild it new:
What lesser sacrifice than this was meet
To offer for the safety of the fleet?
Blow one ship up, another thence does grow:
See what free cities and wise courts can do!
So some old merchant, to insure his name,
Marries afresh, and courtiers share the dame;
So whatsoe'er is broke, the servants pay't,
And glasses prove more durable than plate.
No mayor till now so rich a pageant feigned,
Nor one barge all the companies contained.
Then, Painter, draw cerulean Coventry,
Keeper, or rather chanc'llor, of the sea;
Of whom the captain buys his leave to die,
And barters or for wounds or infamy;
And more exactly to express his hue,
Ultramarine must do 't, the richest blue.
To pay him fees, one's silver trumpet spends;
The boatswain's whistle on his place depends.
Pilots in vain repeat the compass o'er,
Until of him they learn that one point more:
The constant magnet to the pole does hold,
Steel to the magnet, Coventry to gold.
Muscovy sells us hemp and pitch and tar,
Iron and copper, Sweden; Münster, war;
Ashley, prize; Warwick, customs; Cart'ret, pay;
But Coventry sells the whole fleet away.
Now let our navy stretch its canvas wings,
Swoll'n like his purse, with tackling like it strings,
By slow degrees of the increasing gale,
First under sale, and after under sail;
Then in kind visit unto Opdam's gout,
Hedge the Dutch in only to let them out.
So huntsmen fair unto the hares give law,
First find them and then civilly withdraw;
That the blind Archer, when they take the seas,
The Hamburg convoy may betray at ease.
So that the fish may more securely bite,
The fisher baits the river overnight.
But, Painter, now prepare, t' enrich thy piece,
Pencil of ermines, oil of ambergris:
See where the duchess, with triumphant tail
Of num'rous coaches, Harwich does assail!
So the land crabs, at Nature's kindly call,
Down to engender at the sea do crawl.
See then the admiral, with navy whole,
To Harwich through the ocean caracole.
So swallows, buried in the sea, at spring
Return to land with summer on their wing.
One thrifty ferry-boat of mother-pearl
Sufficed of old the Cytherean girl;
Yet navies are but properties, when here
(A small sea-masque and built to court you, dear)
Three gooddesses in one: Pallas for art,
Venus for sport, and Juno in your heart.
O duchess! if thy nuptial pomp were mean,
'Tis paid with int'rest in this naval scene.
Never did Roman Mark within the Nile
So feast the fair Egyptian Crocodile,
Nor the Venetian duke, with such a state,
The Adriatic marry at that rate.
Now, Painter, spare thy weaker art, forbear
To draw her parting passions and each tear;
For love, alas! has but a short delight:
The winds, the Dutch, the king, all call to fight.
She therefore the duke's person recommends
To Brouncker, Penn, and Coventry, as friends:
Penn much, more Brouncker, most to Coventry;
For they, she knew, were all more 'fraid than she.
Of flying fishes one had saved the fin,
And hoped with these he through the air might spin;
The other thought he might avoid his knell
In the invention of the diving bell;
The third had tried it, and affirmed a cable
Coiled round about men, was impenetrable.
But these the duke rejected, only chose
To keep far off and others interpose
Rupert, that knew not fear, but health did want,
Kept state suspended in a chaise-volante;
All save his head shut in that wooden case,
He showed but like a broken weatherglass;
But, armed in a whole lion cap-a-chin,
Did represent the Hercules within.
Dear shall the Dutch his twinging anguish know,
And feel what valor whet with pain can do.
Cursed in the meantime be the trait'ress Jael
That through his princely temples drove the nail!
Rupert resolved to fight it like a lion,
But Sandwich hoped to fight it like Arion:
He, to prolong his life in the dispute
And charm the Holland pirates, tuned his lute,
Till some judicious dolphin might approach
And land him safe and sound as any roach.
Hence by the gazetteer he was mistook,
As unconcerned as if at Hinchingbrooke.
Now, Painter, reassume thy pencil's care;
It hath but skirmished yet, now fight prepare
And draw the battle terribler to show
Than the Last Judgment was of Angelo.
First, let our navy scour through silver froth,
The ocean's burden and the kingdom's both,
Whose very bulk may represent its birth
From Hyde and Paston, burdens of the earth:
Hyde, whose transcendent paunch so swells of late
That he the rupture seems of law and state;
Paston, whose belly bears more millions
Then Indian carracks and contains more tuns.
Let shoals of porpoises on every side
Wonder, in swimming by our oaks outvied,
And the sea fowl, at gaze, behold a thing
So vast, more strong and swift, than they of wing,
But, with presaging gorge, yet keep in sight
And follow for the relics of a fight.
Then let the Dutch, with well-dissembled fear,
Or bold despair, more than we wish, draw near,
At which our gallants (to the sea but tender,
More to the fight) their queasy stomachs render,
With breasts so panting that at every stroke
You might have felt their hearts beat through the oak,
While one concerned most, in the interval
Of straining choler, thus did cast his gall:

" Noah be damned and all his race accursed,
That in sea brine did pickle timber first!
What though he planted vines! He pines cut down —
He taught us how to drink and how to drown.
He first built ships and in that wooden wall,
Saving but eight, e'er since endangers all.
And thou Dutch necromantic friar, be damned,
And in thine own first mortar-piece be rammed!
Who first invented cannon in thy cell,
Nitre from earth and brimstone fetched from hell.
But damned and treble damned be Clarendine,
Our seventh Edward, and his house and line!
Who, to divert the danger of the war
With Bristol, hounds us on the Hollander;
Fool-coated gownman! sells, to fight with Hans,
Dunkirk; dismantling Scotland, quarrels France;
And hopes he now hath bus'ness shaped and power
T' outlast his life or ours and 'scape the Tower;
And that he yet may see, ere he go down,
His dear Clarinda circled in a crown. "

By this time both the fleets in wrath dispute,
And each the other mortally salute.
Draw pensive Neptune, biting of his thumbs,
To think himself a slave whos'e'er o'ercomes,
The frighted nymphs retreating to the rocks,
Beating their blue breasts, tearing their green locks.
Paint Echo slain: only th' alternate sound
From the repeating cannon does rebound.
Opdam sails in, placed in his naval throne,
Assuming courage greater than his own,
Makes to the duke and threatens him from far
To nail himself to 's board like a petar,
But in the vain attempt takes fire too soon
And flies up in his ship to catch the moon.
Monsieurs like rockets mount aloft and crack
In thousand sparks, then dancingly fall back.
Yet ere this happened, Destiny allowed
Him his revenge, to make his death more proud:
A fatal bullet from his side did range
And battered Lawson — O too dear exchange!
He led our fleet that day too short a space,
But lost his knee, died since in Glory's race;
Lawson, whose valor beyond fate did go
And still fights Opdam through the lakes below.
The duke himself (though Penn did not forget)
Yet was not out of danger's random set.
Falmouth was there (I know not what to act —
Some say 'twas to grow duke, too, by contact);
An untaught bullet in its wanton scope
Quashes him all to pieces and his hope.
Such as his rise such was his fall, unpraised:
A chance shot sooner took than chance him raised.
His shattered head the fearless duke distains
And gave the last-first proof that he had brains.
Berkeley had heard it soon and thought not good
To venture more of royal Harding's blood;
To be immortal he was not of age
And did e'en now the Indian prize presage,
But judged it safe and decent (cost what cost)
To lose the day, since his dear brother's lost.
With his whole squadron straight away he bore,
And, like good boy, promised to fight no more.
The Dutch Urania fairly on us sailed,
And promises to do what Opdam failed.
Smith to the duke does intercept her way
And cleaves t' her closer than the remora.
The captain wondered and withal disdained,
So strongly by a thing so small detained,
And in a raging brav'ry to him runs;
They stab their ships with one another's guns;
They fight so near it seems to be on ground,
And e'en the bullets meeting bullets wound.
The noise, the smoke, the sweat, the fire, the blood,
Are not to be expressed nor understood.
Each captain from the quarterdeck commands;
They wave their bright swords glitt'ring in their hands.
All luxury of war, all man can do
In a sea-fight, did pass betwixt them two,
But one must conquer, whosoever fight:
Smith took the giant and is since made knight.
Marlb'rough, that knew and dared, too, more than all,
Falls undistinguished by an iron ball:
Dear Lord! but born under a star ingrate,
No soul so clear, and no more gloomy fate.
Who would set up war's trade that meant to thrive?
Death picks the valiant out, the cow'rds survive.
What the brave merit th' impudent do vaunt,
And none's rewarded but the sycophant;
Hence all his life he against Fortune fenced,
Or not well known or not well recompensed.
But envy not this praise to 's memory:
None more prepared was or less fit to die.
Rupert did others, and himself, excel:
Holmes, Tyddiman, Myngs; bravely Sansum fell.
What others did let none omitted blame;
I shall record, whos'e'er brings in his name.
But (unless after stories disagree)
Nine only came to fight, the rest to see.
Now all conspires unto the Dutchman's loss:
The wind, the fire, we, they themselves, do cross,
When a sweet sleep the duke began to drown
And with soft diadem his temples crown.
But first he orders all beside to watch,
That they the foe (whilst he a nap) might catch.
But Brouncker, by a secreter instinct,
Slept not, nor needs it; he all day had winked.
The duke in bed, he then first draws his steel,
Whose virtue makes the misled compass wheel:
So ere he waked, both fleets were innocent,
And Brouncker member is of Parliament.
And now, dear Painter, after pains like those,
Twere time that thou and I too should repose.
But all our navy 'scaped so sound of limb
That a small space served to refresh it trim,
And a tame fleet of theirs does convoy want,
Laden with both the Indies and Levant.
Paint but this one scene more, the world's our own;
The halcyon Sandwich does command alone.
To Bergen now with better maw we haste,
And the sweet spoils in hope already taste,
Though Clifford in the character appears
Of supercargo to our fleet and theirs,
Wearing a signet ready to clap on
And seize all for his master Arlington.
Ruyter, whose little squadron skimmed the seas
And wasted our remotest colonies,
With ships all foul returned upon our way.
Sandwich would not disperse, nor yet delay,
And therefore (like commander grave and wise)
To 'scape his sight and fight, shut both his eyes,
And, for more state and sureness, Cuttance true
The left eye closes, the right Montagu,
And even Clifford proffered (in his zeal
To make all safe) t' apply to both his seal.
Ulysses so, till he the Sirens passed,
Would by his mates be pinioned to the mast.
Now may our navy view the wished port;
But there too (see the fotune!) was a fort.
Sandwich would not be beaten nor yet beat:
Fools only fight, the prudent use to treat.
His cousin Montagu (by court disaster
Dwindled into the wooden horse's master)
To speak of peace seemed among all most proper,
Had Talbot then treated of nought but copper,
For what are forts, when void of ammunition?
With friend or foe what would we more condition?
Yet we three days (till the Dutch furnished all —
Men, powder, cannon, money) treat with Wall.
Then Teddy, finding that the Dane would not,
Sends in six captains bravely to be shot,
And Montagu, though dressed like any bride,
Though aboard him too, yet was reached and died.
Sad was this chance, and yet a deeper care
Wrinkles our membranes under forehead fair:
The Dutch armada yet had the impudence
To put to sea to waft their merchants hence;
For, as if all their ships of walnut were,
The more we beat them, still the more they bear;
But a good pilot and a fav'ring wind
Bring Sandwich back and once again did blind.
Now, gentle Painter, ere we leap on shore,
With thy last strokes ruffle a tempest o'er,
As if in our reproach the winds and seas
Would undertake the Dutch while we take ease.
The seas their spoils within our hatches throw,
The winds both fleets into our mouths do blow,
Strew all their ships along the coast by ours,
As easy to be gathered up as flow'rs.
But Sandwich fears for merchants to mistake
A man of war, and among flow'rs a snake.
Two Indian ships, pregnant with eastern pearl
And diamonds, sate the officers and earl.
Then warning of our fleet, he it divides
Into the ports, and he to Oxford rides,
While the Dutch, reuniting to our shames,
Ride all insulting o'er the Downs and Thames.
Now treating Sandwich seems the fittest choice
For Spain, there to condole and to rejoice;
He meets the French, but, to avoid all harms,
Slips to the Groin (embassies bear not arms!)
There let him languish a long quarantine
And ne'er to England come till he be clean,
Thus having fought we know not why, as yet,
We've done we know not what nor what we get:
If to espouse the ocean all the pains,
Prince unite and will forbid the bains;
If to discharge fanatics, this makes more,
For all fanatic turn when sick or poor;
Or if the House of Commons to repay,
Their prize commissions are transferred away;
But for triumphant checkstones, if, and shell
For duchess' closet, 't has succeeded well.
If to make Parliaments all odious pass;
If to reserve a standing force, alas!
Or if, as just, Orange to reinstate,
Instead of that, he is regenerate;
And with four millions vainly giv'n as spent,
And with five millions more of detriment,
Our sum amounts yet only to have won
A bastard Orange for pimp Arlington!
Now may historians argue con and pro:
Denham saith thus, though Waller always so;
But he, good man, in his long sheet and staff,
This penance did for Cromwell's epitaph.
And his next theme must be o' th' duke's mistress:
Advice to draw Madam l'Édificatresse.
Henceforth, O Gemini! two dukes command:
Castor and Pollux, Aumarle, Cumberland.
Since in one ship, it had been fit they went
In Petty's double-keeled Experiment .

To the King

Imperial prince, king of the seas and isles,
Dear object of our joys and Heaven's smiles:
What boots it that thy light does gild our days
And we lie basking in thy milder rays,
While swarms of insects, from thy warmth begun,
Our land devour and intercept our sun?
Thou, like Jove's Minos, rul'st a greater Crete
And for its hundred cities count'st thy fleet.
Why wilt thou that state-Daedalus allow,
Who builds thee but a lab'rinth and a cow?
If thou art Minos, be a judge severe
And in 's own maze confine the engineer;
Or if our sun, since he so near presumes,
Melt the soft wax with which he imps his plumes
And let him, falling, leave his hated name
Unto those seas his war hath set on flame.
From that enchanter having cleared thine eyes,
Thy native sight will pierce within the skies
And view those kingdoms calm of joy and light,
Where's universal triumph but no fight.
Since both from Heav'n thy race and power descend,
Rule by its pattern, there to reascend:
Let justice only draw and battle cease;
Kings are in war but cards: they're gods in peace.