A Pindaric Ode on the King

NOw at great Iove's supream command,
Fortune, his Slave, with threatning hand,
Furiously whirls about her wheel,
Which turning like a vast machine,
Changes the Worlds great stage, unseen,
Whilst with the motion giddy Nations reel.

Alecto has been rows'd from Hell,
To punish a flagitious age,
In human Breasts her Serpents dwell,
And sting the guilty world to rage.
The Fury stalks about and raves,
Germany trembles at her horrid yell,
She rates the backward French, goads on th' abandon'd Slaves,
To execute the black contrivances of Hell.
On to prodigious villanies they go,
Till they want sense their monstrous crimes to know.
Thro the Palatinate she with them flies,
And whilst the native by his murderer dies,
She her infernal Torch to ev'ry house applies.
A Town she burns for each vast Fun'ral Pile,
And, (grinning horribly a ghastly smile)
Upon the flames, as terribly they blaze,
Th' abominable fiend with dismal Joy doth gaze.

As Deluges whole Kingdoms sweep,
Urg'd by fierce Tempests and the Deep,
Wars dreadful inundation swells,
Rais'd both by wrath Divine, and Hells.
Nor Art nor Nature has the force
To stop its noisie course;
Nor Alps, nor Pyreneans keep it out,
Nor fortify'd Redoubt.

In vain the Irish, Straw-built Hutts forsake,
And to their Bogs in vain they make,
There soon does Fate her fugitives o'retake.
And as with horror and with fear,
Her grim attendants, she draws near,
The bogs and men with one Convulsion shake.

In vain to the AEtherial Skies,
Climbing his Alps, th' amaz'd Savoyard flies,
The Bloody French the wretch persue,
Who pants with toil and terror too;
And near to Heaven (deaf to his piercing cries)
By impious hands he dies.

In Belgian Plains whilst th' English Lyon ramps,
Terror's diffus'd thro Gallick Forts and Camps.
See how his deadly lifted paw
Keeps couchant Luxemburgh in awe!
At William's mighty name,
All France, with its exalted Idol shakes;
William's bright sounding fame,
Like Lightning, when from Heav'n it breaks,
Troubles the great Offender's sight,
And does his conscious Instruments affright;
And by its brightness and its noise,
Confounds them e're his Arm, war's Thunder-bolt' destroys.

Glittering in glorious Arms he shines from far,
Like the fifth Heav'ns ascendant Star,
Whose very aspect gives success in War:
Whose influential pow'r decides,
And over fatal fields presides,
Just like the Moon's o're-raging Tydes:
Till by conjunction deadlier grown,
By its confederate force some mighty State's o'rethrown.

To William's Vertue stiff Rebellion yields
In Aghrim's purple Fields.
William, when at the Boyne he fought,
The Shannon and the Suc to pass his fierce Battalions taught
His bravery kindled in their breasts the fire,
Which does to glory by great acts aspire,
And on to Aghrim hurried them, unknowing to retire.

Should fear in wretched man prevail,
Who could condemn it in a thing so frail?
The Universe has not a creature
Which the condition of its nature,
Subjects to more internal accidents,
Or outward casual events.
The least of which has often pow'r
To antedate his fatal hour.
William not only subject is to those,
High pow'r, vast worth, him ev'ry hour expose
To the perfidiousness & strength of all his Gallic foes.
Domestic Villains who surround him too,
In his Destruction wish the World t' undo:
Yet see him in this dangerous state
Dauntless as Gods secur'd by Fate.

The numerous Squadrons of his foes,
Th' accursed troublers of the Worlds repose,
He with heroic rage defies;
Surveying them, his sparkling eyes
With Godlike transports rowl;
And his brave Warriers second his great Soul.
And (tho retrench'd old wary Bouteville lyes)
Each for the onset cryes.
He, wise in fury, keeps them back,
Conduct profound defers the wish'd attack.
Thus often when some desperate offence
Does Heav'ns almighty pow'r incense,
Its vengeance it delays, expecting fatal times,
By high fore-knowledge pre-ordain'd to punish mighty crimes.

When, William, the predestin'd hour
T' o'rethrow that formidable pow'r,
Struck by the dire alarum comes,
Struck by loud Cannon and tempestuous Drums:
When Gods the bus'ness of the World forego,
To be spectators of the fierce debate,
Pleas'd to behold the Sanguinary show,
The tragic play of Fortune and of Fate:
In that great hour, that wondrous hour, controul thy noble fire,
Which does to bright eternal Fame too furiously aspire.
Ah! let not the transporting Rage,
The Christian World's sole hope too dangerously engage!
On thee depend thy Country and thy Friends,
On thee the dreadful day and vast event depends.

Think on the Boyne, on that great action think,
Where can that man who thinks not on't be found?
That action thro both Indies does reound,
And as the golden Ganges, makes the wretched Boyne renown'd.
Think how expos'd thou mad't its banks the brink
Of ruine, into which we all were like to sink.
Its banks, more famous for the threatned blow,
Than for the signal overthrow.
Canst thou one cursed moment there forget?
Europe remembers it with horrour yet.
Tho on those banks victorious Troops you led,
And half the Rebels were already fled:
Yet when the fatal shot approach'd thy sacred head,
(But Schomberg destiny atton'd)
Fair Liberty shriek'd out aloud, aloud Religion groan'd.
How did they on their Champions danger look!
Ev'n England's genius was with terror struck,
And of the whole Conederate pow'r the guardian Angel shook.

Manage thy Royal Life, by Heav'n design'd
T' ensure Great Britain and Mankind:
Thy safety for their own all necessary find.
Had Heav'n thy death made necessary too,
Does not thy former conduct shew,
That thou woud'st, ravish'd with thy glorious doom,
Do for the World what Curtius did for Rome?

Ye Brittish Muses celebrate his fame,
Where can you find a nobler theme
T' illustrate yours or Britain's name?
In valour soveraign, and in sense supream.
He's over all his Subjects found,
His Subjects thro the World renown'd,
For lofty Spirit, and for Thought profound.
To him your Britain owes,
That nothing but the sound of War she knows.
Ev'ry where else death and destruction reign,
Our happy Isle does Peace within retain,
Defended by a double guard, its Monarch & the Main.