Proudly he marches on, and, void of fear,
Laughs at the shaking of the British spear: 
Vain insolence! with native freedom brave,
The meanest Briton scorns the highest slave;
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Contempt and fury fire their souls by turns,
Each nation’s glory in each warrior burns,
Each fights, as in his arm the important day
And all the fate of his great monarch lay: 
A thousand glorious actions, that might claim
Triumphant laurels, and immortal fame,
Confused in clouds of glorious actions lie,
And troops of heroes undistinguished die. 
O Dormer, how can I behold thy fate,
And not the wonders of thy youth relate!
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How can I see the gay, the brave, the young,
Fall in the cloud of war and lie unsung! 
In joys of conquest he resigns his breath,
And, filled with England’s glory, smiles in death. 
The rout begins, the Gallic squadrons run,
Compelled in crowds to meet the fate they shun;
Thousands of fiery steeds with wounds transfixed
Floating in gore, with their dead masters mixed,
Midst heaps of spears and standards driven around,
Lie in the Danube’s bloody whirlpools drowned,
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Troops of bold youths, born on the distant Soane,
Or sounding borders of the rapid Rhone,
Or where the Seine her flowery fields divides,
Or where the Loire through winding vineyards glides;
In heaps the rolling billows sweep away,
And into Scythian seas their bloated corps convey. 
From Blenheim’s towers the Gaul, with wild affright,
Beholds the various havoc of the fight;
His waving banners, that so oft had stood,
Planted in fields of death, and streams of blood,
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So wont the guarded enemy to reach,
And rise triumphant in the fatal breach,
Or pierce the broken foe’s remotest lines,
The hardy veteran with tears resigns. 
Unfortunate Tallard![7] Oh, who can name
The pangs of rage, of sorrow, and of shame,
That with mixed tumult in thy bosom swelled! 
When first thou saw’st thy bravest troops repelled,
Thine only son pierced with a deadly wound,
Choked in his blood, and gasping on the ground,
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Thyself in bondage by the victor kept! 
The chief, the father, and the captive wept. 
An English Muse is touched with generous woe,
And in the unhappy man forgets the foe. 
Greatly distressed! thy loud complaints forbear,
Blame not the turns of fate, and chance of war;
Give thy brave foes their due, nor blush to own
The fatal field by such great leaders won,
The field whence famed Eugenio bore away
Only the second honours of the day.
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With floods of gore that from the vanquished fell,
The marshes stagnate, and the rivers swell. 
Mountains of slain lie heaped upon the ground,
Or ’midst the roarings of the Danube drowned;
Whole captive hosts the conqueror detains
In painful bondage and inglorious chains;
Even those who’scape the fetters and the sword,