Nor seek the fortunes of a happier lord,
Their raging king dishonours, to complete
Marlborough’s great work, and finish the defeat.
360
From Memminghen’s high domes, and Augsburg’s walls,
The distant battle drives the insulting Gauls;
Freed by the terror of the victor’s name,
The rescued states his great protection claim;
Whilst Ulm the approach of her deliverer waits,
And longs to open her obsequious gates. 
The hero’s breast still swells with great designs,
In every thought the towering genius shines: 
If to the foe his dreadful course he bends,
O’er the wide continent his march extends;
370
If sieges in his labouring thoughts are formed,
Camps are assaulted, and an army stormed;
If to the fight his active soul is bent,
The fate of Europe turns on its event. 
What distant land, what region, can afford
An action worthy his victorious sword? 
Where will he next the flying Gaul defeat,
To make the series of his toils complete? 
Where the swoln Rhine, rushing with all its force,
Divides the hostile nations in its course,
380
While each contracts its bounds, or wider grows,
Enlarged or straitened as the river flows,
On Gallia’s side a mighty bulwark stands,
That all the wide extended plain commands;
Twice, since the war was kindled, has it tried
The victor’s rage, and twice has changed its side;
As oft whole armies, with the prize o’erjoyed,
Have the long summer on its walls employed. 
Hither our mighty chief his arms directs,
Hence future triumphs from the war expects;
390
And though the dog-star had its course begun,
Carries his arms still nearer to the sun: 
Fixed on the glorious action, he forgets
The change of seasons, and increase of heats: 
No toils are painful that can danger show,
No climes unlovely that contain a foe. 
The roving Gaul, to his own bounds restrained,
Learns to encamp within his native land,
But soon as the victorious host he spies,
From hill to hill, from stream to stream he flies: 
400
Such dire impressions in his heart remain
Of Marlborough’s sword, and Hochstet’s fatal plain: 
In vain Britannia’s mighty chief besets
Their shady coverts, and obscure retreats;
They fly the conqueror’s approaching fame,
That bears the force of armies in his name,
Austria’s young monarch, whose imperial sway
Sceptres and thrones are destined to obey,
Whose boasted ancestry so high extends
That in the pagan gods his lineage ends,
410
Comes from afar, in gratitude to own
The great supporter of his father’s throne;
What tides of glory to his bosom ran,
Clasped in the embraces of the godlike man! 
How were his eyes with pleasing wonder fixed
To see such fire with so much sweetness mixed,
Such easy greatness, such a graceful port,
So turned and finished for the camp or court!