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With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff

comes;

15 Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound the drums;

His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample space;

For there behoves him to set up the standard of Her Grace.

And haughtily the trumpets peal and gaily dance the bells,

As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon

swells.

20

Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient

crown,

And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies down.

So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that famed Picard field,

Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Caesar's eagle shield.

So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned

to bay,

25

And crushed and torn beneath his claws the princely

hunters lay.

Ho! strike the flagstaff deep, Sir Knight: ho! scatter flowers, fair maids:

Ho! gunners, fire a loud salute: ho! gallants, draw your blades:

Thou sun, shine on her joyously; ye breezes, waft her wide;

Our glorious SEMPER EADEM, the banner of our

pride.

30

The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner's

massy fold;

The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty scroll of gold;

Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the purple sea,

Such night in England ne'er had been, nor e'er again shall be.

From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay,

35

That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the

day;

For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly warflame spread,

High on St. Michael's Mount it shone; it shone on Beachy Head.

Far on the deep the Spaniards saw, along each southern shire,

Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire.

40

The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering

waves:

The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves :

O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew :

He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu.

Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol town,

45

And ere the day three hundred horse had met on

Clifton Down;

The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night,

And saw o'erhanging Richmond Hill the streak of blood-red light;

Then bugle's note and cannon's roar the death-like

silence broke,

And with one start and with one cry,

city woke.

the royal

50

At once on all her stately gates arose the answering

fires;

At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling spires;

From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the voice of fear;

And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a louder cheer;

And from the furthest wards was heard the rush of hurrying feet,

55

And the broad streams of pikes and flags rushed down each roaring street;

And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din,

As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in:

And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the warlike errand went,

60

And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent. Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those bright couriers forth;

High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they started for the north;

And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still:

All night from tower to tower they sprang: they sprang from hill to hill:

Till the proud Peak unfurled the flag o'er Darwin's

rocky dales,

65

Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales.

Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern's lonely height,

Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's crest of light,

Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely's

stately fane,

And tower and hamlet rose in arms o'er all the

boundless plain;

70

Till Belvoir's lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,

1252.2

49

D

And Lincoln sped the message on o'er the wide vale of Trent;

Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt's embattled pile,

And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.

LORD MACAULAY.

16. halberdiers. A halberd was a weapon shaped so as to serve both as axe and spear.

22. The gay lilies. The flag of France.

23. Picard field. Creçy (1346) in Picardy.

24. Bohemia's plume. (Cf. Creçy, p. 63 (I), 1. 45.) The King of Bohemia's crest was three feathers (afterwards adopted by the Prince of Wales).

Genoa's bow. See note to Creçy, p. 63 (I), l. 43.

Caesar's eagle shield. Charles, the son of the King of Bohemia, was also King of the Romans. The princes who bore this title, might as did Charlemagne and his successorsregard themselves as heirs to the Roman Emperors, all of whom used to adopt the name of Caesar. The eagle was the military symbol of Rome.

30. SEMPER EADEM] Always the same '-Elizabeth's motto. 41. Tamar's. Devon's. Tamar is a river in Devonshire. 42. Mendip's sunless caves. The mines in Somersetshire.

43. Longleat. In Wiltshire. 43-4. Cranbourne, Beaulieu.

Near the New Forest.

65. Darwin. The Derwent in Derbyshire.

68. the Wrekin. A hill in Shropshire.

71. Belvoir. The Duke of Rutland's house on the borders of Lincolnshire.

73. Gaunt's embattled pile. Lancaster Castle.

THE END OF THE ARMADA

(1588)

SOUTHWARD to Calais, appalled

And astonished, the vast fleet veers;
And the skies are shrouded and palled,
But the moonless midnight hears

And sees how swift on them drive and drift strange flames that the darkness fears.

5

They fly through the night from shoreward,
Heart-stricken till morning break,

And ever to scourge them forward

Drives down on them England's Drake,

And hurls them in as they hurtle and spin and stagger, with storm to wake.

ΙΟ

Fierce noon beats hard on the battle; the galleons that loom to the lee

Bow down, heel over, uplifting their shelterless hulls from the sea;

From scuppers aspirt with blood, from guns dismounted and dumb,

The signs of the doom they looked for, the loud mute witnesses come.

They press with sunset to seaward for comfort: and shall not they find it there?

15

O servants of God most high, shall his winds not pass you by, and his waves not spare? The wings of the south-west wind are widened; the breath of his fervent lips,

More keen than a sword's edge, fiercer than fire, falls full on the plunging ships.

The pilot is he of their northward flight, their stay and their steersman he;

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