To the Memory of Captain James Hind.
    By a Poet of his own Time.

                         I.
     WHENEVER Death attacks a Throne,
Nature thro’ all her Parts must groan,
The mighty Monarch to bemoan.

                           II.
     He must be wise, and just, and good;
Tho’ nor the State he understood,
Nor ever spar’d a Subject’s Blood.

                           III
     And shall no friendly Poet find
A monumental Verse for Hind?
In fortune less, as great in Mind.

                           IV.
     Hind made our Wealth one common Store;
He robb’d the Rich to feed the Poor:
What did immortal Caesar more?

                           V.
     Nay, ’twere not difficult to prove
That meaner Views did Caesar move:
His was Ambition, Hind’s was Love.

                           VI.
     Our English Hero sought no Crown,
Nor that more pleasing Bait, Renown;
But just to keep off Fortune’s Frown.

                           VII.
     Yet when his Country’s Cause invites,
See him assert a Nation’s Rights!
A Robber for a Monarch fights!

                           VIII.
     If in due Light his Deeds we scan,
As Nature points us out the Plan,
Hind was an honourable Man.

                           IX.
     Honour, the Virtue of the Brave,
To Hind that Turn of Genius gave,
Which made him scorn to be a Slave.

                           X.
     This, had his Stars conspir’d to raise
His natal Hour, his Virtue’s Praise
Had shone with an uncommon Blaze.

                           XI.
     Some new Epocha had begun
From ev’ry Action he had done;
A City built, a Battle won.

                           XII.
     If one’s a Subject, one at Helm,
’Tis the same Violence, says Anselm,1
To rob a House, or waste a Realm.

                           XIII.
     Be henceforth then for ever join’d
The Names of Caesar, and of Hind,
In Fortune different, one in Mind.

Textual Note

Copy from British Library; class mark C. 175. e. 9. In the original, Stanza IV has ‘onr’ for ‘our’. Stanza V has ‘more’ for ‘move’. Stanza VII has ‘Het’ for ‘Yet’. Stanza X, line 3 reads: ‘His natal Hour. This Virtue’s Praise’. I have made what seem to me the obvious corrections. I have also removed conspicuously redundant commas at the ends of the following lines: III. 1, V. 1, X. 1, XI. 1, XIII. 1.

Notes

• Anselm: presumably St Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109), who wrote many theological works. So far, I have been unable to trace the reference. It is possible that the author of this poem was actually thinking of a famous and often-quoted passage in St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei; or that Anselm somewhere quotes this passage.  [return]