The anxious prince had heard the cannon long, And, from that length of time, dire omens drew Of English overmatched, and Dutch too strong, Who never fought three days, but to pursue. 107. Then, as an eagle, who with pious care Was beating widely on the wing for prey, To her now silent eiry does repair, And finds her callow infants forced away; 108. Stung with her love, she stoops upon the plain, The broken air loud whistling as she flies; She stops and listens, and shoots forth again, And guides her pinions by her young ones cries. 109. With such kind passion hastes the prince to fight, And spreads his flying canvas to the sound; Him, whom no danger, were he there, could fright, Now absent, every little noise can wound. 110. As in a drought the thirsty creatures cry, And gape upon the gathered clouds for rain; And first the martlet meets it in the sky, And with wet wings joys all the feathered train; 111. With such glad hearts did our despairing men Salute the appearance of the prince's fleet; And each ambitiously would claim the ken, That with first eyes did distant safety meet. 112. The Dutch, who came like greedy hinds before, To reap the harvest their ripe ears did yield, Now look like those, when rolling thunders roar, And sheets of lightning blast the standing field. 113. Full in the prince's passage, hills of sand, And dangerous flats, in secret ambush lay; Where the false tides skim o'er the covered land, And seamen, with dissembled depths, betray. 114. The wily Dutch, who, like fallen angels, feared This new Messiah's coming, there did wait, And round the verge their braving vessels steered, To tempt his courage with so fair a bait. 115. But he, unmoved, contemns their idle threat, Secure of fame whene'er he please to fight; His cold experience tempers all his heat, And inbred worth doth boasting valour slight. 116. Heroic virtue did his actions guide, And he the substance, not the appearance, chose; To rescue one such friend he took more pride, Than to destroy whole thousands of such foes. 117. But when approached, in strict embraces bound, Rupert and Albemarle together grow; He joys to have his friend in safety found, Which he to none but to that friend would owe. 118. The cheerful soldiers, with new stores supplied, Now long to execute their spleenful will; And, in revenge for those three days they tried, Wish one, like Joshua's, when the sun stood still. 119. Thus reinforced, against the adverse fleet,[146] Still doubling ours, brave Rupert leads the way; With the first blushes of the morn they meet, And bring night back upon the new-born day. 120.