Charles Sackville

On King William's Happy Deliverance from the Intended Assassination

The youth whose fortune the vast globe obey'd,
Finding his royal enemy betray'd
And in his chariot by vile hands opprest,
With noble pity and just rage posses't,
Wept at the fall of so sublime a state
And with the traitor's death reveng'd the fate
Of monarchy profane; so acted too
The generous Caesar when the Roman knew
A coward king had treacherously slain
One he scarce foil'd on the Pharsalian plain.
The doom of his fam'd rival he bemoan'd
And the base author of the crime dethron'd.
So virtuous was the actions of the great,
Far from the guilty acts of desperate hate:
They knew no foe, but in the open field,
And to their cause and to their gods appeal'd.

So William acts, and if his rivals dare
Dispute his right by arms, he'll meet them there
Where Jove, as once on Ida, holds the scale
And lets the good, the just, the brave prevail.