No less than either who have borne the name
Of Sidney, those two Napiers of their time,
Is thine, who stoodest upon Acca’s mound
And hurledst thence defiance on the host
That would have won Byzantion, which remain’d
The solitary city unsubdued
By fraud or force, from Afric’s desart sands
To Zembla’s and Siberia’s frozen sea.
The vanquisht loved thee for thy generous soul
And own’d thee worthy to be French almost,
While England sent thee forth unrecompenst
To five and die among them.
Thus it fared
With Rodney too: but Rodney never walkt
Amid the wretched to relieve their wants,
To speak kind words, to press the palsied hand,
And carry from his own now scanty store
A portion under a worn cloak .. thou didst
Therefor be blessings on thee! therefor praise,
From one who can bestow it, and who deals
Thriftily that, and watches for desert.