A POEM On the late Happy VICTORY OVER THE TURKS.  

HAD We a Muse successful as thy Sword,  
Thy Deeds lorraine, should have their just Record:  
Thy famed an everlasting Date should keep,  
The Aeneid fall, and Homers Fable sleep.  
Thy famed past Ages Glory has engrossed,  
Thou Second Leader of a Sacred Host.  
'twas great the promised Canaan to obtain;  
'twas great to Win, but greater to Regain.  
Run faster, drove, with Turkish Gore supplied,  
And to the Euxine bear thy Purple Tide;  
Till the proud Monarch in the sanguine Flood,  
Sees just atonement made for Christian Blood.  
Bear the fell Tidings to his Palace Gate,  
And bid Byzantium look for Buda's Fate.  
It was too much, proud Foe, t' have kept your Post,  
Against th' Assault of our Imperial Host.  
Your waning Moon 'gainst rising Christendom,  
'twas Victory then not to be ore-come;  
But Fated Mortals ever tempt their Doom.  
Their hasty Troops misconstru'd our Retreat,  
And followed Conquest to their own Defeat.  
This, brave lorraine, this was thy Noblest Fight,  
Who like a Parthian Conquer'st in thy Flight.   

Behold both Chiefs, tho with late Slaughter tired,  
Once more encamped, and for new Action fired:  
But since on Each an Empire is at stake,  
Each checks his flamme, and waits the Foe's Attack.  
The famished Lions thus their Rage restrain,  
Till folded Flocks come forth into the Plain:  
What should our Gen'ral do? the Foe immured  
With late Experience lies too well secured:  
Nor can He tempt them forth,( that Valor's just  
That to an open Field its Fate would Trust)  
Each Method will alike destructive prove,  
T' Assault is Vain, and fatal to Remove.  
Since then He may not Fight, and scorns to Fly,  
A seeming Flight secures his Victory.  
Detachments of whole Legions are withdrawn,  
Whose weak Remainder Lures the Ottoman.  
At certain Spoil and Conquest they aspire,  
But meet Resistance that half damps their Fire.  
The Valiant Few th' unequal shock sustain,  
Till their Returning Friends surround the Plain,  
No more the Trenches th' entrenched Confine,  
But Sallying, in the noble Slaughter join;  
In Vain th' encumbered Infidels retreat,  
Their Numbers now but serve to urge their Fate.  
By their own Troops their Infantry's ore-run,  
And both by their close-pressing Foes undone.  
So▪ when the Waves retired, th' Egyptian Bands,  
advanced presumptuous on th' uncovered Sands,  
Till for Escape too late, too far from cost,  
The swift surrounding Waves—  
Return'd and swallowed the Blaspheming Host.   

Where now was Britains Young and rising Star,  
Caesario, fair as Peace yet formed for War;  
By Caesar sent to honourable Toil,  
To reap Renown, while others Hunt for spoil;  
What Fate, what Charm the noble Youth withheld,  
From sharing the first Wreaths of this illustrious Field?  
An Envious Sickness intercepts his Course,  
Disarms those Hands that braved the Sultan's Force.  
While Fate, in Plea of this diverted famed,  
cries BUDA has already crowned his Name.  
Nor Britains Noble Brood was wanting There,  
The foremost Dangers, foremost famed to Share;  
Who through the World this Character have past,  
( How' ere the Fields Success by Fate is cast,)  
The First in On-sett, in Retreat the Last.  
'twas doomed, when Caesar, Britains Sun, should Rise,  
The Turkish Moon must set, her Crescent Dyes.  
spite of all Pagan Arms—  
combined to work the Fate of Christendom,  
And most Unchristian-Christian Foe's at Home.   
FINIS.   

August 20. 1687.  
This may be Printed, R. P.   

London, Printed by H. Hills, Jun. in blackfriars, near the Water-side. 1687.