英美诗歌经典：战争篇最新章节_方成著

1.The Fantasy of the State and Legitimacy of Colonization

The conception of sovereign“state”has been one of the most complicated in modern and contemporary history. Whether as a politically organised body of people occupying a definite territory, or a political organisation of such a body of people, or a government or politically organised society having a particular character, the sovereign“state”has often been regarded as a truth marker, a moral arbiter, or beauty conceiver. It has witnessed a long time of glorification, mystification, and apotheosis. But it gradually encountered violent critique in modern discourses.

The critique of cultural pathology has grown out of two convictions: The criticism of a constitutive feature of modernity; and the state concept as the foundation of modern political discourse. As has been seen from Kant to Marx and far beyond, criticism has been the main instrument in fulfilling the promises of the modern age. By tracing those pre-modern“ghosts”out of political institutions and political critique, criticism has shown that the modern state has been envisaged as the place where expectations were to be realised, but it has also indicated that the sovereign state is unlikely to remain as a legitimate source of political authority. The Marxian conception takes the role of the state as a“monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory”, and regards any political power as merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. What is unfortunate is that war poetry that writes about the British colonisation largely glorifies the state and tries with every means to legitimate its colonisation, such as in John Dryden and Charles Sackville. Equally, the fantasy of the state even weakens the traditional conception of“Nationalism”, singing high praise of the British even as a mongrel race and taking“Patriotism”as a gesture of constant imperial expansion,such as in Daniel Defoe, Joseph Addison, and James Thomson.

John Dryden (1631—1700)

John Dryden is an English poet, dramatist, and literary critic, dominating the last four decades of the 17 ^th century, and the literary scene of his day as“the Age of Dryden”. When Sir William Davenant died in 1668, Dryden was soon appointed poet laureate in his place and royal historiographer two years later. As a poet, he is known for his two sub-genres of poetry:“Occasional”, such as Annus Mirabilis (1667), Religio Laici (1682), The Hind and the Panther (1687), Anne Killigrew (1686), and Alexander's Feast (1697); and“Satirical”,such as Absalom and Achitophel (1681), Mac Flecknoe (1682), and The Medall (1682). His non-dramatic poems are most typically occasional poems, written for the commemoration of particular events of a public character such as a coronation, a military victory, a death, or a political crisis, among which the longest up to date, Annus Mirabilis , was a celebration of two victories by the English fleet over the Dutch and the fortitude of the people of London and the king during the Great Fire of 1666, both events of that being widely called“Year of Wonders”.The significance lies in his gilding the royal image and reinforcing the concept of a loyal nation united under the best of kings by interpreting those trials sent by the God to punish rebellious spirits and to bind the king and his people together, in response to the enemies of Charles II who say that the God is casting his wrath on the English people signifying that the reign of an unholy king would soon come to an end. The first excerpt is from Annus Mirabilis, and the second can be simply named as “To her Royal Highess the Duchess”, entitled in full as“Verses to Her Royal Highness the Duchess, on the Memorable Victory Gained by the Duke against the Hollanders, June 3 1665, and on Her Journey Afterwards into the North”with an initial greeting as“Madam”.

Excerpts from Annus Mirabilis

Now van to van the foremost squadrons meet,

The midmost battles hasting up behind,

Who view, far off, the storm of falling sleet,

And hear their thunder rattling in the wind.

At length the adverse admirals appear:

(The two bold champions of each country's right)

Their eyes describe the lists as they come near,

And draw the lines of death before they fight.

The distance judged for shot of every size,

The linstocks touch, the pond'rous ball expires:

The vig'rous seaman every port-hole plies,

And adds his heart to every gun he fires.

Fierce was the fight on the proud Belgians' side,

For honour, which they seldom sought before:

But now they by their own vain boasts were tied,

—And forced, at least in show, to prize it more.

But sharp remembrance on the English part,

And shame of being matched by such a foe:

Rouse conscious virtue up in every heart,

And seeming to be stronger makes them so.

Nor long the Belgians could that fleet sustain,

Which did two gen'rals' fates, and Caesar's bear.

Each several ship a victory did gain,

As Rupert or as Albemarl were there.

Their battered admiral too soon withdrew,

Unthanked by ours for his unfinished fight :

But he the minds of his Dutch masters knew,

Who called that providence which we called flight.

Never did men more joyfully obey,

Or sooner understand the sign to fly:

With such alacrity they bore away,

As if to praise them all the states stood by.

O famous Leader of the Belgian fleet,

Thy monument inscribed such praise shall wear

As Varro, timely flying, once did meet,

Because he did not of his Rome despair.

Behold that navy which a while before

Provoked the tardy English to the fight,

Now draw their beaten vessels close to shore,

As larks die dared to shun the hobbies' flight.

Who ere would English monuments survey,

In other records may our courage know:

But let them hide the story of this day,

Whose fame was blemished by too base a foe.

Or if too busily they will enquire

Into a victory which we disdain:

Then let them know, the Belgians did retire

Before the Patron Saint of injured Spain.

Repenting England this revengeful day

To Philip's manes did an off'ring bring:

England, which first, by leading them astray,

Hatched up rebellion to destroy her King.

Our fathers bent their baneful industry

To check a monarchy that slowly grew:

But did not France or Holland's fate foresee,

Whose rising power to swift dominion flew.

In fortune's empire blindly thus we go,

And wander after pathless destiny:

Whose dark resorts since prudence cannot know,

In vain it would provide for what shall be.

Now on their coasts our conquering navy rides,

Waylays their merchants, and their land besets:

Each day new wealth without their care provides,

They lie asleep with prizes in their nets.

“To her Royal Highness the Duchess”

When, for our sakes, your hero you resigned

To swelling seas, and every faithless wind;

When you released his courage, and set free

A valour fatal to the enemy;

You lodged your country's cares within your breast,

(The mansion where soft love should only rest,)

And, ere our foes abroad were overcome,

The noblest conquest you had gained at home.

Ah, what concerns did both your souls divide!

Your honour gave us what your love denied;

And 'twas for him much easier to subdue

Those foes he fought with, than to part from you.

That glorious day, which two such navies saw,

As each unmatched might to the world give law,

Neptune, yet doubtful whom he should obey,

Held to them both the trident of the sea:

The winds were hushed, the waves in ranks were cast,

As awfully as when God's people past:

Those, yet uncertain on whose sails to blow,

These, where the wealth of nations ought to flow.

Then with the Duke your Highness ruled the day:

While all the brave did his command obey,

The fair and pious under you did pray.

How powerful are chaste vows! the wind and tide

You bribed to combat on the English side.

Thus to your much-loved lord you did convey

An unknown succour, sent the nearest way.

New vigour to his wearied arms you brought,

(So Moses was upheld while Israel fought)

While, from afar, we heard the cannon play,

Like distant thunder on a shiny day.

For absent friends we were ashamed to fear,

When we considered what you ventured there.

Ships, men, and arms, our country might restore,

But such a leader could supply no more.

With generous thoughts of conquest he did burn,

Yet fought not more to vanquish than return.

Fortune and victory he did pursue,

To bring them, as his slaves, to wait on you:

Thus beauty ravished the rewards of fame,

And the fair triumphed, when the brave o'ercame.

Then, as you meant to spread another way

By land your conquests, far as his by sea,

Leaving our southern clime, you marched along

The stubborn north ten thousand Cupids strong.

Like commons the nobility resort,

In crowding heaps, to fill your moving court:

To welcome your approach the vulgar run,

Like some new envoy from the distant sun;

And country beauties by their lovers go,

Blessing themselves, and wondering at the show.

So, when the new-born Phœnix first is seen,

Her feathered subjects all adore their queen,

And, while she makes her progress through the east,

From every grove her numerous train's increased:

Each poet of the air her glory sings,

And round him the pleased audience clap their wings.

Charles Sackville (1638—1706)

Charles Sackville, Earl of Dorset, is a poet whose satires in heroic couplets anticipated and influenced the style of Alexander Pope. He was a friend of John Dryden and a well-known courtier of the reign of British king Charles II, The Merry Monarch (1630—1685), king of Great Britain and Ireland (1660—1685), in which the years of his reign are known in English history as the Restoration period. Dorset wrote“Song Written at Sea in the First Dutch War,the night before an Engagement”in 1665. ^[1] As the title has indicated, the First Anglo-Dutch War, or simply the First Dutch War (1652—1654), a conflict fought entirely at sea between the navies of the Commonwealth of England and the United Provinces of the Netherlands, was largely caused by disputes over trade.

“Song Written at Sea in the First Dutch War, the Night before an Engagement”

To all you ladies now at land

We men at sea indite;

But first would have you understand

How hard it is to write:

The Muses now, and Neptune too,

We must implore to write to you—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

For though the Muses should prove kind,

And fill our empty brain,

Yet if rough Neptune rouse the wind

To wave the azure main,

Our paper, pen, and ink and we,

Roll up and down our ships at sea—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

Then if we write not by each post,

Think not we are unkind;

Nor yet conclude our ships are lost

By Dutchmen or by wind:

Our tears we'll send a speedier way,

The tide shall bring them twice a day—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

The King with wonder and surprise

Will swear the seas grow bold,

Because the tides will higher rise

Than e'er they did of old:

But let him know it is our tears

Bring floods of grief to Whitehall stairs—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

Should foggy Opdam chance to know

Our sad and dismal story,

The Dutch would scorn so weak a foe,

And quit their fort at Goree:

For what resistance can they find

From men who've left their hearts behind?—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

Let wind and weather do its worst,

Be you to us but kind;

Let Dutchmen vapour, Spaniards curse,

No sorrow we shall find:

'Tis then no matter how things go,

Or who's our friend, or who's our foe—

With a fa, la, la, la, la .

To pass our tedious hours away

We throw a merry main,

Or else at serious ombre play;

But why should we in vain

Each other's ruin thus pursue?

We were undone when we left you—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

But now our fears tempestuous grow

And cast our hopes away;

Whilst you, regardless of our woe,

Sit careless at a play:

Perhaps permit some happier man

To kiss your hand, or flirt your fan—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

When any mournful tune you hear,

That dies in every note

As if it sighed with each man's care

For being so remote,

Think then how often love we've made

To you, when all those tunes were played—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

In justice you cannot refuse

To think of our distress,

When we for hopes of honour lose

Our certain happiness:

All those designs are but to prove

Ourselves more worthy of your love—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

And now we've told you all our loves,

And likewise all our fears,

In hopes this declaration moves

Some pity for our tears:

Let's hear of no inconstancy—

We have too much of that at sea—

With a fa, la, la, la, la.

Daniel Defoe (1660—1731)

Daniel Defoe is a novelist, pamphleteer and journalist, best known for his novels of Robinson Crusoe (1719—1722) and Moll Flanders (1722), who had fundamentally shaped the novel as an emerging genre of English literature. As a staunch Dissenter and with characteristic impetuosity, he joined the rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth when the Roman Catholic James II ascended the throne in 1685. His representative poetic production includes The True-Born Englishman (1701), which ridicules the very conception of being“a true Englishman”in reply to attacks on the“foreign”kings , Poems on Affairs of State (1703), Reformation of Manners (1702), and A Hymn to the Pillory (1703). These poems witnessed the development of his thought, such as reform or morality and casting poems into irony. The excerpt is Part I of The True-Born Englishman , which can be considered as a war poem for its conception of the English race as a result of constant conquest and racial integration while another excerpt The Spanish Descent (1702) celebrates the military victory regarded at the time as the most momentous in over a hundred years and is thus a poem on the history of state affairs: The providential success at Vigo of Sir George Rooke's capture of the entire Spanish fleet is in sharp contrast to the English failure at Cadiz during the earlier war, 1689—1697.

Excerpts from The True-born Englishman

W HEREVER God erects a house of prayer,

The Devil always builds a chapel there:

And 'twill be found upon examination,

The latter has the largest congregation:

For ever since he first debauch'd the mind,

He made a perfect conquest of mankind.

With uniformity of service, he

Reigns with general aristocracy.

No non-conforming sects disturb his reign,

For of his yoke, there's very few complain.

He knows the genius and the inclination,

And matches proper sins for ev'ry nation.

He needs no standing army government;

He always rules us by our own consent:

His laws are easy, and his gentle sway

Makes it exceeding pleasant to obey.

The list of his vicegerents and commanders,

Out-does your Cæsars, or your Alexanders.

They never fail of his infernal aid,

And he's as certain ne'er to be betray'd.

Thro' all the world they spread his vast command,

And death's eternal empire is maintain'd.

They rule so politically and so well,

As if they were Lords Justices of hell;

Duly divided to debauch mankind,

And plant infernal dictates in his mind.

P RIDE , the first peer, and president of hell,

To his share, Spain, the largest province fell.

The subtle Prince thought fittest to bestow

On these the golden mines of Mexico,

With all the silver mountains of Peru;

Wealth which in wise hands would the world undo;

Because he knew their genius was such,

Too lazy and too haughty to be rich:

So proud a people, so above their fate,

That, if reduced to beg, they'll beg in state:

Lavish of money, to be counted brave,

And proudly starve, because they scorn to save;

Never was nation in the world before,

So very rich, and yet so very poor.

L UST chose the torrid zone of Italy,

Where blood ferments in rapes and sodomy:

Where swelling veins o'erflow with living streams,

With heat impregnate from Vesuvian flames;

Whose flowing sulphur forms infernal lakes,

And human body of the soil partakes.

There nature ever burns with hot desires,

Fann'd with luxuriant air from subterranean fires:

Here undisturbed, in floods of scalding lust,

Th' infernal king reigns with infernal gust.

D RUNKENNESS , the darling favourite of hell,

Chose Germany to rule; and rules so well,

No subjects more obsequiously obey,

None please so well, or are so pleased as they;

The cunning artist manages so well,

He lets them bow to heav'n, and drink to hell.

If but to wine and him they homage pay,

He cares not to what deity they pray;

What god they worship most, or in what way.

Whether by Luther, Calvin, or by Rome,

They sail for heaven, by wine he steers them home.

U NGOVERN'D PASSION settled first in France,

Where mankind lives in haste, and thrives by chance;

A dancing nation, fickle and untrue,

Have oft undone themselves, and others too;

Prompt the infernal dictates to obey,

And in hell's favour none more great than they.

T HE pagan world he blindly leads away,

And personally rules with arbitrary sway:

The mask thrown off, plain devil, his title stands;

And what elsewhere he tempts, he there commands;

There, with full gust, th' ambition of his mind,

Governs, as he of old in heaven design'd:

Worshipp'd as God, his Paynim altars smoke,

Imbrued with blood of those that him invoke.

T HE rest by deputies he rules so well,

And plants the distant colonies of hell;

By them his secret power he firm maintains,

And binds the world in his infernal chains.

B Y zeal the Irish, and the Russ by folly,

Fury the Dane, the Swede by melancholy;

By stupid ignorance, the Muscovite;

The Chinese, by a child of hell, call'd wit;

Wealth makes the Persian too effeminate;

And poverty the Tartar desperate:

The Turks and Moors, by Mah'met he subdues;

And God has given him leave to rule the Jews:

Rage rules the Portuguese, and fraud the Scotch;

Revenge the Pole, and avarice the Dutch.

S ATIRE , be kind, and draw a silent veil,

Thy native England's vices to conceal:

Or, if that task's impossible to do,

At least be just, and show her virtues too;

Too great the first, alas! the last too few.

E NGLAND , unknown, as yet unpeopled lay,—

Happy, had she remain'd so to this day,

And still to ev'ry nation been a prey.

Her open harbours, and her fertile plains,

The merchant's glory these, and those the swain's,

To ev'ry barbarous nation have betray'd her;

Who conquer her as oft as they invade her,

So beauty, guarded out by Innocence,

That ruins her which should be her defence.

I NGRATITUDE , a devil of black renown,

Possess'd her very early for his own:

An ugly, surly, sullen, selfish spirit,

Who Satan's worst perfections does inherit;

Second to him in malice and in force,

All devil without, and all within him worse.

H E made her first-born race to be so rude,

And suffer'd her to be so oft subdued;

By sev'ral crowds of wandering thieves o'er-run,

Often unpeopled, and as oft undone;

While ev'ry nation that her powers reduced,

Their languages and manners introduced;

From whose mix'd relics our compounded breed,

By spurious generation does succeed;

Making a race uncertain and uneven,

Derived from all the nations under heaven.

T HE Romans first with Julius Cæsar came,

Including all the nations of that name,

Gauls, Greek, and Lombards; and, by computation,

Auxiliaries or slaves of ev'ry nation.

With Hengist, Saxons; Danes with Sweno came,

In search of plunder, not in search of fame.

Scots, Picts, and Irish from th' Hibernian shore;

And conq'ring William brought the Normans o'er.

A LL these their barb'rous offspring left behind,

The dregs of armies, they of all mankind;

Blended with Britons, who before were here,

Of whom the Welch ha' blest the character.

F ROM this amphibious, ill-born mob began,

That vain ill-natured thing, an Englishman.

The customs, sirnames, languages, and manners,

Of all these nations, are their own explainers;

Whose relics are so lasting and so strong,

They've left a Shiboleth upon our tongue;

By which, with easy search, you may distinguish

Your Roman, Saxon, Danish, Norman, English.

T HE great invading Norman let us know

What conquerors in after-times might do.

To every musqueteer he brought to town,

He gave the lands which never were his own;

When first the English crown he did obtain,

He did not send his Dutchmen home again.

No re-assumptions in his reign were known,

Davenant might there ha' let his book alone.

No parliament his army could disband;

He raised no money, for he paid in land.

He gave his legions their eternal station,

And made them all freeholders of the nation.

He canton'd out the country to his men,

And every soldier was a denizen.

The rascals thus enrich'd, he called them lords,

To please their upstart pride with new-made words,

And doomsday book his tyranny records.

A ND here begins the ancient pedigree

That so exalts our poor nobility.

'Tis that from some French trooper they derive,

Who with the Norman bastard did arrive:

The trophies of the families appear;

Some show the sword, the bow, and some the spear,

Which their great ancestor, forsooth, did wear.

These in the herald's register remain,

Their noble mean extraction to explain,

Yet who the hero was no man can tell,

Whether a drummer or a colonel:

The silent record blushes to reveal

Their undescended dark original.

B UT grant the best. How came the change to pass;

A true-born Englishman of Norman race?

A Turkish horse can show more history,

To prove his well-descended family.

Conquest, as by the moderns‘tis express’d,

May give a title to the lands possess'd;

But that the longest sword should be so civil,

To make a Frenchman English, that's the devil.

T HESE are the heroes that despise the Dutch,

And rail at new-come foreigners so much;

Forgetting that themselves are all derived

From the most scoundrel race that ever lived;

A horrid crowd of rambling thieves and drones

Who ransack'd kingdoms, and dispeopled towns;

The Pict and painted Briton, treach'rous Scot,

By hunger, theft, and rapine, hither brought;

Norwegian pirates, buccaneering Danes,

Whose red-hair'd offspring everywhere remains;

Who, join'd with Norman French, compound the breed

From whence your true-born Englishmen proceed.

A ND lest, by length of time, it be pretended,

The climate may this modern breed have mended;

Wise Providence, to keep us where we are,

Mixes us daily with exceeding care;

We have been Europe's sink, the jakes, where she

Voids all her offal out-cast progeny;

From our fifth Henry's time the strolling bands,

Of banish'd fugitives from neighb'ring lands,

Have here a certain sanctuary found:

The eternal refuge of the vagabond,

Where in but half a common age of time,

Borrowing new blood and manners from the clime,

Proudly they learn all mankind to contemn,

And all their race are true-born Englishmen.

D UTCH Walloons, Flemmings, Irishmen, and Scots,

Vaudois, and Valtolins, and Hugonots,

In good Queen Bess's charitable reign,

Supplied us with three hundred thousand men:

Religion—God, we thank thee!—sent them hither,

Priests, Protestants, the devil, and all together;

Of all professions, and of ev'ry trade,

All that were persecuted or afraid:

Whether for debt, or other crimes, they fled,

David at Hackelah was still their head.

T HE offspring of this miscellaneous crowd,

Had not their new plantations long enjoy'd,

But they grew Englishmen, and raised their votes,

At foreign shoals of interloping Scots;

The royal branch from Pict-land did succeed,

With troops of Scots and scabs from north of Tweed;

The seven first years of his pacific reign,

Made him and half his nation Englishmen.

Scots from the northern frozen banks of Tay,

With packs and plods came whigging all away,

Thick as the locusts which in Egypt swarm'd,

With pride and hungry hopes completely arm'd;

With native truth, diseases, and no money,

Plunder'd our Canaan of the milk and honey;

Here they grew quickly lords and gentlemen,

And all their race are true-born Englishmen.

T HE civil wars, the common purgative,

Which always use to make the nation thrive,

Made way for all that strolling congregation,

Which throng'd in pious Charles's restoration.

The royal refugee our breed restores,

With foreign courtiers, and with foreign whores:

And carefully re-peopled us again,

Throughout his lazy, long, lascivious reign,

With such a blest and true-born English fry,

As much illustrates our nobility.

A gratitude which will so black appear,

As future ages must abhor to bear:

When they look back on all that crimson flood,

Which stream'd in Lindsey's, and Caernarvon's blood;

Bold Strafford, Cambridge, Capel, Lucas, Lisle,

Who crown'd in death his father's fun'ral pile.

The loss of whom, in order to supply

With true-born English nobility,

Six bastard dukes survive his luscious reign,

The labours of Italian Castlemain,

French Portsmouth, Tabby Scott, and Cambrian;

Besides the num'rous bright and virgin throng,

Whose female glories shade them from my song.

This offspring if our age they multiply,

May half the house with English peers supply:

There with true English pride they may contemn

Schomberg and Portland, new-made noblemen.

F RENCH cooks, Scotch pedlars, and Italian whores,

Were all made lords or lords' progenitors.

Beggars and bastards by this new creation

Much multiplied the peerage of the nation;

Who will be all, ere one short age runs o'er,

As true-born lords as those we had before.

T HEN to recruit the commons he prepares,

And heal the latent breaches of the wars;

The pious purpose better to advance,

He invites the banish'd Protestants of France;

Hither for God's sake, and their own, they fled

Some for religion came, and some for bread:

Two hundred thousand pair of wooden shoes,

Who, God be thank'd, had nothing left to lose;

To heaven's great praise did for religion fly,

To make us starve our poor in charity.

In ev'ry port they plant their fruitful train,

To get a race of true-born Englishmen;

Whose children will, when riper years they see,

Be as ill-natured, and as proud as we;

Call themselves English, foreigners despise,

Be surly like us all, and just as wise.

T HUS from a mixture of all kinds began,

That heterogeneous thing, an Englishman:

In eager rapes, and furious lust begot,

Betwixt a painted Briton and a Scot:

Whose gend'ring offspring quickly learn'd to bow,

And yoke their heifers to the Roman plough;

From whence a mongrel half-bred race there came,

With neither name nor nation, speech or fame,

In whose hot veins new mixtures quickly ran,

Infused betwixt a Saxon and a Dane;

While their rank daughters, to their parents just,

Received all nations with promiscuous lust.

This nauseous brood directly did contain

The well-extracted blood of Englishmen.

W HICH medley, canton'd in a heptarchy,

A rhapsody of nations to supply,

Among themselves maintain'd eternal wars,

And still the ladies loved the conquerors.

T HE Western Angles all the rest subdued,

A bloody nation, barbarous and rude;

Who by the tenure of the sword possess'd

One part of Britain, and subdued the rest:

And as great things denominate the small,

The conquering part gave title to the whole;

The Scot, Pict, Briton, Roman, Dane, submit,

And with the English Saxon all unite:

And these the mixture have so close pursued,

The very name and memory's subdued;

No Roman now, no Briton does remain;

Wales strove to separate, but strove in vain:

The silent nations undistinguish'd fall,

And Englishman's the common name for all.

Fate jumbled them together, God knows how;

Whate'er they were, they're true-born English now.

T HE wonder which remains is at our pride,

To value that which all wise men deride;

For Englishmen to boast of generation

Cancels their knowledge, and lampoons the nation,

A true-born Englishman's a contradiction,

In speech an irony, in fact a fiction:

A banter made to be a test of fools,

Which those that use it justly ridicules;

A metaphor intended to express,

A man a-kin to all the universe.

Excerpts from The Spanish Descent

The word's gone out, and now they spread the main

With swelling sails, and swelling hopes, for Spain:

To double vengeance pressed where'er they come,

Resolved to pay the haughty Spaniard home:

Resolved by future conduct to atone

For all our past mistakes, and all their own.

New life springs up in every English face,

And fits them all for glorious things apace:

The booty some excites, and some the cause;

But more the hope to gain their lost applause.

Eager their sullied honour to restore,

Some anger whets, some pride and vengeance more.

The lazy minutes now pass on too slow,

Fancy flies faster than the winds can blow:

Impatient wishes lengthen out the day;

They chide the loitering winds for their delay.

But time is nature's faithful messenger,

And brings up all we wish, as well as all we fear.

The mists clear up, and now the scout decries

The subject of their hopes and victories:

The wished for fleets embayed, in harbour lie,

Unfit to fight, and more unfit to fly.

Triumphant joy throughout the navy flies,

Echoed from shore with terror and surprise.

Strange power of noise! which at one simple sound

At once shall some encourage, some confound.

In vain the lion tangled in the snare

With anguish roars, and rends the trembling air:

'Tis vain to struggle with Almighty Fate;

Vain and impossible the weak debate.

The mighty boom, the forts, resist in vain.

The guns with fruitless force in noise complain.

See how the troops intrepidly fall on!

Wish for more foes, and think they fly too soon.

With eager fury to their forts pursue,

And think the odds of four to one too few.

The land's first conquered and the prize attends;

Fate beckons in the fleet to back their friends:

Despair succeeds, they struggle now too late,

And soon submit to their prevailing fate:

Courage is madness when occasion's past,

Death's the securest refuge, and the last.

And now the rolling flames come threat'ning on,

And mighty streams of melted gold run down.

The flaming ore down to its centre makes,

To form new mines beneath the oozy lakes.

Here a galleon with spicy drugs inflamed,

In odoriferous folds of sulphur streamed.

The gods of old no such oblations knew,

Their spices weak, and their perfumes but few.

The frighted Spaniards from their treasure fly,

Loath to forsake their wealth, but loath to die.

Here a vast carrack flies while none pursue,

Bulged on the shore by her distracted crew:

There like a mighty mountain she appears,

And groans beneath the golden weight she bears.

Conquest perverts the property of friend,

And makes men ruin what they can't defend :

Some blow their treasures up into the air

With all the wild excesses of despair.

Strange fate! that war such odd events should have;

Friends would destroy, and enemies would save:

Others their safety to their wealth prefer,

And mix some small discretion with their fear.

Life's the best gift that nature can bestow;

The first that we receive, the last which we forgo:

And he that's vainly prodigal of blood,

Forfeits his sense to do his cause no good.

All desperation's the effect of fear;

Courage is temper, valour can't despair.

And now the victory's completely gained;

No ships to conquer now, no foes remained.

The mighty spoils exceed whate'er was known

That vanquished ever lost, or victor won:

So great, if Fame shall future times remind,

They'll think she lies, and libels all mankind.

Joseph Addison (1672—1719)

Joseph Addison is an essayist, poet, dramatist, and government official. His writing skill led to his important posts in government while the Whigs were in power. In 1695, he wrote A Poem to his Majesty (William III), which brought favourable notice for later services of potential use to the crown. The greatest literary achievement is his co-author, with Richard Steele, of The Tatler and The Spectator , which elevates the English essay to a degree of technical perfection never before achieved and perhaps never since surpassed. His major works also include an opera libretto Rosamund (1707), a prose comedy The Drummer (1716),and a neoclassical tragedy Cato (1713). The poem The Campaign (1705), a poem addressed to Duke of Marlborough while trumpeting his successes as a modern“Iliad,”a glorious hunt accomplished with spears rather than cannon and musketry, expresses the nation's great hour of victory at the Battle of Blenheim, where the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy won one of the most important victories of the War of the Spanish Succession on 13 August 1704. The poem's title in full is The Campaign, A Poem, To His Grace the Duke of Marlborough.

Excerpts from The Campaign…

While crowds of princes your deserts proclaim,

Proud in their number to enroll your name;

While emperors to you commit their cause,

And Anna's praises crown the vast applause,

Accept, great leader, what the muse indites,

That in ambitious verse records your fights,

Fir'd and transported with a theme so new:

Ten thousand wonders op'ning to my view

Shine forth at once, sieges and storms appear,

And wars and conquests fill th' important year,

Rivers of blood I see, and hills of slain;

An Iliad rising out of one campaign.

…

Thus would I fain Britannia's wars rehearse,

In the smooth records of a faithful verse;

That, if such numbers can o'er time prevail,

May tell posterity the wondrous tale.

When actions, unadorn'd, are faint and weak,

Cities and countries must be taught to speak,

Gods may descend in factions from the skies,

And rivers from their oozy beds arise;

Fiction may deck the truth with spurious rays,

And round the hero cast a borrow'd blaze.

Marlbro's exploits appear divinely bright,

And proudly shine in their own native light;

Rais'd of themselves, their genuine charms they boast,

And those who paint 'em truest praise 'em most.

James Thomson (1700—1748)

James Thomson is a poet best known for his masterpiece, a long blank verse in four parts,called The Seasons : Winter in 1726, Summer in 1727, Spring in 1728, and the whole poem,including Autumn , in 1730. He is also remembered for his ambitious poem in five parts, Liberty (1735—36), and for The Castle of Indolence (1748), an allegory in Spenserian stanzas.The excerpt is his famous ode“Rule, Britannia!”from Alfred, a Masque (1740), giving expression to the achievements of Newtonian science and to an England reaching toward great political power based on commercial and maritime expansion, which is later adapted as the British Navy song. It can also be a glorification of British colonisation.

“Rule, Britannia!”

When Britain first, at heaven's command,

Arose from out the azure main,

This was the charter of the land,

And guardian angels sung this strain—