In dreams they fearful precipices tread;
Or, shipwrecked, labour to some distant shore;
Or in dark churches walk among the dead;
They wake with horror, and dare sleep no more.
The verses, in which Prince Rupert and his enemy are compared to a greyhound and hare, after a course so desperate as totally to exhaust both, have been always considered as exquisitely beautiful.[86] The description of the Loyal London partakes of the beauties and faults which are dispersed through the poem. Nothing can be more majestic than her description, "firing the air with her sanguine streamers," and "riding upon her shadow in floating gold." We lament, that the weaver should have been so fascinated with his labours as to commence seaman; and still more, that, after describing her "roomy decks," and "depth of draught," she should furnish no grander simile than that of
——a sea-wasp floating on the waves.
More unqualified approbation may be justly afforded to the whole description of the Dutch homeward-bound fleet, captured in sight of their desired haven; and the fine moral lessons which the poet takes the opportunity to inculcate, from so unexpected an incident. The 34th stanza has a tenderness and simplicity, which every lover of true poetry must admire:
This careful husband had been long away,
Whom his chaste wife and little children mourn;
Who on their fingers learned to tell the day