Henry King: Verses about Sea

Move on thou floating Trophee built to fame!
And bid her trump spread thy Majestick name;
That the blew Tritons, and those petty Gods
Which sport themselves upon the dancing floods,
May bow as to their Neptune, when they feel
The awful pressure of thy potent keel.
Great wonder of the time! whose form unites,
In one aspect two warring opposites,
Delight and horrour; and in them portends
Diff'ring events both to thy foes and friends:
To these thy radiant brow, Peaces bright Shrine,
Doth like that golden Constellation shine,
Which guides the Sea man with auspicious beams,
Safe and unshipwrackt through the troubled streams.
But, as a blazing Meteor, to those
It doth ostents of blood and death disclose.
For thy rich Decks lighten like Heavens fires,
To usher forth the thunder of thy Tires.
O never may cross wind, or swelling wave
Conspire to make the treach'rous sands thy grave:
Nor envious rocks in their white foamy laugh
Rejoyce to wear thy losses Epitaph.
But may the smoothest, most successful gales
Distend thy sheet, and wing thy flying sailes:
That all designes which must on thee embark,
May be securely plac't as in the Ark.
May'st thou, where ere thy streamers shall display,
Enforce the bold disputers to obey:
That they whose pens are sharper then their swords,
May yield in fact what they deny'd in words.
Thus when th' amazed world our Seas shall see
Shut from Usurpers, to their own Lord free,
Thou may'st returning from the conquer'd Main,
With thine own Triumphs be crown'd Soveraign.

For all the Ship-wracks, and the liquid graves
Lost men have gain'd within the furrow'd waves,
The Sea hath fin'd and for our wrongs paid use,
When its wrought foam a Venus did produce.
But what repair wilt thou unhappy Thames
Afford our losse? thy dull unactive streames
Can no new beauty raise, nor yet restore
Her who by thee was ravisht from our shore:
Whose death hath stain'd the glory of thy flood,
And mixt the guilty Channel with her blood.
O Neptune! was thy favour onely writ
In that loose Element where thou dost sit?
That after all this time thou should'st repent
Thy fairest blessing to the Continent?
Say, what could urge this Fate? is Thetis dead,
Or Amphitrite from thy wet armes fled?
Was't thou so poor in Nymphs, that thy moist love
Must be maintain'd with pensions from above?
If none of these, but that whil'st thou did'st sleep
Upon thy sandy pillow in the deep,
This mischief stole upon us: may our grief
Waken thy just revenge on that slie thief,
Who in thy fluid Empire without leave,
And unsuspected, durst her life bereave.
Henceforth invert thy order, and provide
In gentlest floods a Pilot for our guide.
Let rugged Seas be lov'd, but the Brooks smile
Shunn'd like the courtship of a Crocodile;
And where the Current doth most smoothly pass,
Think for her sake that stream deaths Looking-glass,
To shew us our destruction is most neer,
When pleasure hath begot least sense of fear.
Else break thy forked Scepter 'gainst some Rock,
If thou endure a flatt'ring calm to mock
Thy far-fam'd pow'r, and violate that law
Which keeps the angry Ocean in aw.
Thy Trident will grow useless, which doth still
Wild tempests, if thou let tame rivers kill.
Mean time we ow thee nothing. Our first debt
Lies cancell'd in thy watry Cabinet.
We have for Her thou sent'st us from the Main,
Return'd a Venus back to thee again.