A POEM ON THE Prince of Orange HIS EXPEDITION AND SUCCESS IN ENGLAND.
Written by Mr. RYMER.
LONDON, Printed for Awnsham Churchill, at the Black Swan at Amen-Corner. 1688.
A POEM.
THro' a Red Sea, from squallid bondage clear,
We trod a Wilderness long Forty year:
Till now a Nobler Moses shews at hand
Our so much promis'd Magna Charta Land.
Large were the Grapes, yet per'lous the pursuit;
The Dragons fierce, that guard the goodly fruit.
What Mines, what Magazines of danger there?
Hibernian Monsters muster'd from afar,
Enormous Giants, an unhallow'd Train,
Mighty in bulk, but with more Thumb than Brain?
Whence Rules of Right, and Lines of Reason ras'd;
All Natures bonds, and fence of Law laid waste,
And Violence on Violence were thrown,
And Hills did Hills prodigiously crown;
Till Heaven, provok'd with insolent bravades,
Throws down their Babel on the Builders heads.
Now, Oh! what vigour beats in every Vein,
With warm presage of a Saturnian Reign?
Eternity a certain Round must go;
So Spring and Fall; So Matters ebb and flow,
And the great Wheel, one Revolution o're
Returns more bright, more polisht than before.
Truth now no more in dismal Dungeon thrust,
Nor humane face press'd down to lick the dust.
The God-like Power, that now begins to reign,
New-casts the Slave, and stamps him Man agen.
Fraud crawls away to her dark Den below,
And Truth bears up with an erected brow.
No clog our look, nor meaner fears debase,
Fair Liberty now shines in every face.
For ugly Cheats in Equity or Law,
Pure Innocence and Faith without a flaw:
Ill Weed destroy'd, and every seed of Vice,
The World is now once more all Paradise.
Where late Prerogative, that Dragon-power,
Did every honest Priviledge devour,
[Page 4]And still some hot new Proclamations [...]ear
Our sense, that wo to them who speak, or hear:
Now all restor'd to blind, to deaf and dumb;
No Jew, but now owns the Messiah come.
But Oh! what Genius rais'd his mind so high
Above what mortal Contemplations try;
So Noble flight no Time, no Ages shew,
Trace all the Annals, either old or new.
But leave the feebler strains of History,
And on stretch'd wings let bold Invention fly,
Then say the Man, the Hero, or the God,
That in so brave, so generous path had trod.
Not Iason, first who launch'd to foreign Coast;
Not Hercules, whom so various Nations boast;
Not Phoebus, when his shafts foul Python slew;
Nor Iove reveng'd on the Titanian crew.
Before he struck the hostile Forces broke,
And his Commands were heard before He spoke.
With operation, purely like the Sun,
He shows his face, shines forth, and all is done,
So quick, so fair, so mild his influence;
But touching England, in the way to France,
That Paris-Walls may once agen behold
Our English Arms, so dreadful there of old.
So Bacchus, in one marvellous Campaign,
The Indies brought beneath his gentle Reign;
No blood he shed, nor labour'd to destroy,
All rest secure, dissolv'd in Wine and Joy.
The Conquer'd, like the Conquerors, all content,
All pleas'd, all loud applauding as He went;
The savage kind, the Lynx, the Panther feels
His power; they skip, and lick his Chariot wheels.
Whom ever King the rescu'd Nations call,
He truly reigns the Emperor of all,
A King, a Caesar faintly found his Worth,
'Tis Orange speaks the greatest Name on Earth.
But why those Troops, and formidable Meen?
Seas interpose an hideous Gulph between.
Nor boots it how Confederate Friends inclin'd,
With Land and Seas, He too must fix the Wind.
Ah, 'tis not strange the Elements comply'd,
He marches, God and Nature on his side:
The God of Wonder waits his Destiny,
Gives Horse and Foot their Canvas wings to fly.
Not the Archangel against Hells black throng,
So many wing'd Battalions led along:
And ne're did War the like importance show
With that in Heaven, and this atchiev'd below.
FINIS.