She saw the Boyne run thick with human gore,
  And floating corps lie beating on the shore: 
  She saw thee climb the banks, but tried in vain
  To trace her hero through the dusty plain,
  When through the thick embattled lines he broke,
  Now plunged amidst the foes, now lost in clouds of smoke.
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     Oh that some Muse, renowned for lofty verse,
  In daring numbers would thy toils rehearse! 
  Draw thee beloved in peace, and feared in wars,
  Inured to noonday sweats, and midnight cares! 
  But still the godlike man, by some hard fate,
  Receives the glory of his toils too late;
  Too late the verse the mighty act succeeds;
  One age the hero, one the poet breeds. 
     A thousand years in full succession ran
  Ere Virgil raised his voice, and sung the man
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  Who, driven by stress of fate, such dangers bore
  On stormy seas and a disastrous shore,
  Before he settled in the promised earth,
  And gave the empire of the world its birth. 
     Troy long had found the Grecians bold and fierce,
  Ere Homer mustered up their troops in verse;
  Long had Achilles quelled the Trojans’ lust,
  And laid the labour of the gods in dust,
  Before the towering Muse began her flight,
  And drew the hero raging in the fight,
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  Engaged in tented fields and rolling floods,
  Or slaughtering mortals, or a match for gods. 
     And here, perhaps, by fate’s unerring doom,
  Some mighty bard lies hid in years to come,
  That shall in William’s godlike acts engage,
  And with his battles warm a future age. 
  Hibernian fields shall here thy conquests show,
  And Boyne be sung when it has ceased to flow;
  Here Gallic labours shall advance thy fame,
  And here Seneffe[3] shall wear another name.
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  Our late posterity, with secret dread,
  Shall view thy battles, and with pleasure read
  How, in the bloody field, too near advanced,
  The guiltless bullet on thy shoulder glanced. 
     The race of Nassaus was by Heaven design’d
  To curb the proud oppressors of mankind,
  To bind the tyrants of the earth with laws,
  And fight in every injured nation’s cause,
  The world’s great patriots; they for justice call,
  And, as they favour, kingdoms rise or fall.
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  Our British youth, unused to rough alarms,
  Careless of fame, and negligent of arms,
  Had long forgot to meditate the foe,
  And heard unwarmed the martial trumpet blow;
  But now, inspired by thee, with fresh delight
  Their swords they brandish, and require the fight,
  Renew their ancient conquests on the main,
  And act their fathers’ triumphs o’er again;
  Fired, when they hear how Agincourt was strow’d
  With Gallic corps and Cressi swam in blood,
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  With eager warmth they fight, ambitious all
  Who first shall storm the breach, or mount