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For our men gallopt up with a cheer and a

shout,

And the foeman surged, and waver'd, and reel'd

Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill, out of the

field,

And over the brow and away.

Glory to each and to all, and the charge that they made!

Glory to all the three hundred, and all the

Brigade!

1882.

64

66

Lord Tennyson.

THE REVENGE

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET

AT Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville

lay,

And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away;

Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore

God I am no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are

out of gear,

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but

follow quick.

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.

But I've ninety men and more that are lying

sick ashore.

7

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of

Spain."

12

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,

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Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer

heaven;

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land

Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bideford in Devon,

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And we laid them on the ballast down below; For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were

not left to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the p

glory of the Lord.

21

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,

And he sailed away from Flores till the

Spaniard came in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the

weather bow.

"Shall we fight or shall we fly? Good Sir Richard, tell us now,

For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."

And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good · English men.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil

yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we

roar'd a hurrah, and so

31

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her

ninety sick below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to

the left were seen,

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and laugh'd,

Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft

Running on and on, till delay'd

By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,

Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd. 42

And while now the great San Philip hung

above us like a cloud

Whence the thunderbolt will fall

Long and loud,

Four galleons drew away

From the Spanish fleet that day,

And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,

And the battle-thunder broke from them all. 49

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought

herself and went,

Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;

And the rest they came aboard us, and they

fought us hand to hand,

For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,

And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog

that shakes his ears

When he leaps from the water to the land.

55

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,

But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;

Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.

For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

For he said, "Fight on! fight on!"
Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;

And it chanced that, when half of the short
summer night was gone,

With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,

But a bullet struck him that was dressing it

suddenly dead,

And himself he was wounded again in the side

and the head,

And he said, "Fight on! fight on!"

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,

And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;

But they dared not touch us again, for they
fear'd that we still could sting,

So they watch'd what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,

But in perilous plight were we,

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain

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