Classic Poem

We must resign! Heaven his great soul does claim
In storms, as loud as his immortal fame;
His dying groans, his last breath, shakes our isle,
And trees uncut fall for his funeral pile;
About his palace their broad roots are toss'd
Into the air.--So Romulus was lost!
New Rome in such a tempest miss'd her king,
And from obeying fell to worshipping.
On Oeta's top thus Hercules lay dead,
With ruin'd oaks and pines about him spread;
The poplar, too, whose bough he wont to wear
On his victorious head, lay prostrate there;
Those his last fury from the mountain rent:
Our dying hero from the Continent
Ravish'd whole towns: and forts from Spaniards reft
As his last legacy to Britain left.
The ocean, which so long our hopes confined,
Could give no limits to his vaster mind;
Our bounds' enlargement was his latest toil,
Nor hath he left us pris'ners to our isle;
Under the tropic is our language spoke,
And part of Flanders hath received our yoke.
From civil broils he did us disengage,
Found nobler objects for our martial rage;
And, with wise conduct, to his country show'd
The ancient way of conquering abroad.
Ungrateful then! if we no tears allow
To him, that gave us peace and empire too.
Princes, that fear'd him, grieve, concern'd to see
No pitch of glory from the grave is free.
Nature herself took notice of his death,
And, sighing, swell'd the sea with such a breath,
That, to remotest shores her billows roll'd,
The approaching fate of their great ruler told.