45 He without fear a dangerous war pursues,
       Which without rashness he began before: 
     As honour made him first the danger choose,
       So still he makes it good on virtue’s score.

  46 The doubled charge his subjects’ love supplies,
       Who, in that bounty, to themselves are kind: 
     So glad Egyptians see their Nilus rise,
       And in his plenty their abundance find.

  47 With equal power he does two chiefs[40] create,
       Two such as each seem’d worthiest when alone;
     Each able to sustain a nation’s fate,
       Since both had found a greater in their own.

  48 Both great in courage, conduct, and in fame,
       Yet neither envious of the other’s praise;
     Their duty, faith, and interest too the same,
       Like mighty partners equally they raise.

  49 The prince long time had courted fortune’s love,
       But once possess’d, did absolutely reign: 
     Thus with their Amazons the heroes strove,
       And conquer’d first those beauties they would gain.

  50 The Duke beheld, like Scipio, with disdain,
       That Carthage, which he ruin’d, rise once more;
     And shook aloft the fasces of the main,
       To fright those slaves with what they felt before.

  51 Together to the watery camp they haste,
       Whom matrons passing to their children show: 
     Infants’ first vows for them to heaven are cast,
       And future people bless them as they go.

  52 With them no riotous pomp, nor Asian train,
       To infect a navy with their gaudy fears;
     To make slow fights, and victories but vain: 
       But war severely like itself appears.

  53 Diffusive of themselves, where’er they pass,
       They make that warmth in others they expect;
     Their valour works like bodies on a glass,
       And does its image on their men project.

  54 Our fleet divides, and straight the Dutch appear,
       In number, and a famed commander, bold: 
     The narrow seas can scarce their navy bear,
       Or crowded vessels can their soldiers hold.

  55 The Duke, less numerous, but in courage more,
       On wings of all the winds to combat flies: 
     His murdering guns a loud defiance roar,
       And bloody crosses on his flag-staffs rise.

  56 Both furl their sails, and strip them for the fight;
       Their folded sheets dismiss the useless air: 
     The Elean plains could boast no nobler sight,
       When struggling champions did their bodies bare.

  57 Borne each by other in a distant line,
       The sea-built forts in dreadful order move: 
     So vast the noise, as if not fleets did join,
       But lands unfix’d, and floating nations strove.

  58 Now pass’d, on either side they nimbly tack;
       Both strive to intercept and guide the wind: 
     And, in its eye, more closely they come back,
       To finish all the deaths they left behind.