87 The dastard crow that to the wood made wing,
       And sees the groves no shelter can afford,
     With her loud caws her craven kind does bring,
       Who, safe in numbers, cuff the noble bird.

  88 Among the Dutch thus Albemarle[43] did fare: 
       He could not conquer, and disdain’d to fly;
     Past hope of safety, ’twas his latest care,
       Like falling Caesar, decently to die.

  89 Yet pity did his manly spirit move,
       To see those perish who so well had fought;
     And generously with his despair he strove,
       Resolved to live till he their safety wrought.

  90 Let other muses write his prosperous fate,
       Of conquer’d nations tell, and kings restored;
     But mine shall sing of his eclipsed estate,
       Which, like the sun’s, more wonders does afford.

  91 He drew his mighty frigates all before,
       On which the foe his fruitless force employs: 
     His weak ones deep into his rear he bore
       Remote from guns, as sick men from the noise.

  92 His fiery cannon did their passage guide,
       And following smoke obscured them from the foe: 
     Thus Israel safe from the Egyptian’s pride,
       By flaming pillars, and by clouds did go.

  93 Elsewhere the Belgian force we did defeat,
       But here our courages did theirs subdue: 
     So Xenophon once led that famed retreat,
       Which first the Asian empire overthrew.

  94 The foe approach’d; and one for his bold sin
       Was sunk; as he that touch’d the ark was slain: 
     The wild waves master’d him and suck’d him in,
       And smiling eddies dimpled on the main.

  95 This seen, the rest at awful distance stood: 
        As if they had been there as servants set
     To stay, or to go on, as he thought good,
        And not pursue, but wait on his retreat.

  96 So Lybian huntsmen, on some sandy plain,
       From shady coverts roused, the lion chase: 
     The kingly beast roars out with loud disdain,
       And slowly moves, unknowing to give place.

  97 But if some one approach to dare his force,
       He swings his tail, and swiftly turns him round;
     With one paw seizes on his trembling horse,
       And with the other tears him to the ground.

  98 Amidst these toils succeeds the balmy night;
       Now hissing waters the quench’d guns restore;
     And weary waves, withdrawing from the fight,
       Lie lull’d and panting on the silent shore: 

  99 The moon shone clear on the becalmed flood,
       Where, while her beams like glittering silver play,
     Upon the deck our careful general stood,
       And deeply mused on the succeeding day.

 100 That happy sun, said he, will rise again,
       Who twice victorious did our navy see: 
     And I alone must view him rise in vain,
       Without one ray of all his star for me.