His presence soon blows up the kindling fight, And his loud guns speak thick like angry men; It seemed as slaughter had been breathed all night, And death new-pointed his dull dart agen. 121. The Dutch too well his mighty conduct knew, And matchless courage, since the former fight; Whose navy like a stiff-stretched cord did shew, Till he bore in, and bent them into flight. 122. The wind he shares, while half their fleet offends His open side, and high above him shows; Upon the rest at pleasure he descends, And, doubly harmed, he double harms bestows. 123. Behind, the general mends his weary pace, And sullenly to his revenge he sails; So glides some trodden serpent on the grass, And long behind his wounded volume trails.[147] 124. The increasing sound is borne to either shore, And for their stakes the throwing nations fear; Their passions double with the cannons' roar, And with warm wishes each man combats there. 125. Plied thick and close as when the fight begun, Their huge unwieldy navy wastes away: So sicken waneing moons too near the sun, And blunt their crescents on the edge of day. 126. And now, reduced on equal terms to fight, Their ships like wasted patrimonies show; Where the thin scattering trees admit the light, And shun each other's shadows as they grow. 127. The warlike prince had sever'd from the rest Two giant ships, the pride of all the main; Which with his one so vigorously he pressed, And flew so home, they could not rise again. 128. Already battered, by his lee they lay; In vain upon the passing winds they call; The passing winds through their torn canvas play, And flagging sails on heartless sailors fall. 129. Their opened sides receive a gloomy light, Dreadful as day let into shades below; Without, grim death rides barefaced in their sight, And urges entering billows as they flow. 130. When one dire shot, the last they could supply, Close by the board the prince's main-mast bore: All three, now helpless, by each other lie, And this offends not, and those fear no more. 131. So have I seen some fearful hare maintain A course, till tired before the dog she lay; Who, stretched behind her, pants upon the plain, Past power to kill, as she to get away. 132. With his loll'd tongue he faintly licks his prey; His warm breath blows her flix[148] up as she lies; She, trembling, creeps upon the ground away, And looks back to him with beseeching eyes. 133. The prince unjustly does his stars accuse, Which hindered him to push his fortune on; For what they to his courage did refuse, By mortal valour never must be done. 134.