Each striving to confirm his party
With stout encouragements and hearty.
Quoth Ralpho, Courage, valiant Sir,565
And let revenge and honour stir
Your spirits up; once more fall on,
The shatter'd foe begins to run:
For if but half so well you knew
To use your vict'ry as subdue,[1]570
They durst not, after such a blow
As you have giv'n them, face us now;
But from so formidable a soldier,
Had fled like crows when they smell powder.[2]
Thrice have they seen your sword aloft575
Wav'd o'er their heads, and fled as oft:
But if you let them recollect
Their spirits, now dismay'd and check'd,
You 'll have a harder game to play
Than yet y' have had, to get the day.580
Thus spoke the stout Squire; but was heard
By Hudibras with small regard.
His thoughts were fuller of the bang
He lately took, than Ralph's harangue;
To which he answer'd, Cruel fate,585
Tells me thy counsel comes too late,
The clotted blood[3] within my hose,
That from my wounded body flows,
With mortal crisis doth portend
My days to appropinque an end.[4]590
I am for action now unfit,
Either of fortitude or wit;
Fortune, my foe, begins to frown,
Resolv'd to pull my stomach down.
- ↑ This perhaps has some reference to Prince Rupert, who, at Marston Moor, and on some other occasions, was successful at his first onset by charging with great fury, but lost his advantage by too long a pursuit. See Echard, vol. ii. p. 480.
- ↑ This belief still prevails in all rural districts. Plot, in his Natural History of Oxfordshire, says: "If the crows towards harvest-time are mischievous, the farmers dig holes near the corn, and fill them with cinders and gunpowder, sticking crow feathers about them, which they find successful."
- ↑ Var. The knotted blood.
- ↑ One of the knight's hard words, signifying to approach, or draw near.
