297 Now, like a maiden queen, she will behold,
       From her high turrets, hourly suitors come;
     The East with incense, and the West with gold,
       Will stand, like suppliants, to receive her doom!

 298 The silver Thames, her own domestic flood,
       Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train;
     And often wind, as of his mistress proud,
       With longing eyes to meet her face again.

 299 The wealthy Tagus, and the wealthier Rhine,
       The glory of their towns no more shall boast;
     And Seine, that would with Belgian rivers join,
       Shall find her lustre stain’d, and traffic lost.

 300 The venturous merchant who design’d more far,
       And touches on our hospitable shore,
     Charm’d with the splendour of this northern star,
       Shall here unlade him, and depart no more.

 301 Our powerful navy shall no longer meet,
       The wealth of France or Holland to invade;
     The beauty of this town without a fleet,
       From all the world shall vindicate her trade.

 302 And while this famed emporium we prepare,
       The British ocean shall such triumphs boast,
     That those, who now disdain our trade to share,
      Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast.

 303 Already we have conquer’d half the war,
       And the less dangerous part is left behind: 
     Our trouble now is but to make them dare,
       And not so great to vanquish as to find.

 304 Thus to the Eastern wealth through storms we go,
       But now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more;
     A constant trade-wind will securely blow,
       And gently lay us on the spicy shore.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 36:  Prince Rupert and General Monk, Duke of Albemarle.]

[Footnote 37:  ‘Lawson:’  Sir John Lawson, rear admiral of the red, killed by a ball that wounded him in the knee.]

[Footnote 38:  ‘Wholly lost:’  the Dutch ships on their return home, being separated by a storm, the rear and vice-admirals of the East India fleet, with four men of war, were taken by five English frigates.  Soon after, four men of war, two fire-ships, and thirty merchantmen, being driven out of their course, joined our fleet instead of their own, and were all taken.  These things happened in 1665.]

[Footnote 39:  ‘Munster’s prelate:’  the famous Bertrand Von Der Chalen, Bishop of Munster, excited by Charles, marched twenty thousand men into the province of Overyssel, under the dominion of the republic of Holland, where he committed great outrages.]

[Footnote 40:  ‘Two chiefs:’  Prince Rupert and Monk.]

[Footnote 41:  ‘Berkeley:’  Vice-admiral Berkeley fought till his men were all killed, and was found in the cabin dead and covered with blood.]