Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,
And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain,
And the little Revenge herself went down by the island
To be lost evermore in the main.
BUT Drake, in hourly dread of some new change
In Gloriana's mood, slept not by night
Or day, till out of Roaring Plymouth Sound
The pirate fleet swept to the wind-swept main,
And took the wind and shook out all its sails.
Then with the unfettered sea he mixed his soul
In great rejoicing union, while the ships
Crashing and soaring o'er the heart-free waves
Drave ever straight for Spain.
They lacked; but the fierce fever of his mind
To sail from Plymouth ere the Queen's will changed
Had left no time for these. Right on he drave,
Determining, though the Queen's old officers
Beneath him stood appalled, to take in stores
Of all he needed,-water, powder, food-
By plunder of Spain herself. In Vigo Bay,
Close to Bayona town, under the cliffs
Of Spain's world-wide and thunder-fraught prestige
He anchored, with the old sea-touch that wakes
Our England still. There, in the tingling ears
Of the world he cried, En garde! to the King of Spain.
There, ordering out his pinnaces in force,
While a great storm, as if he held indeed
Heaven's batteries in reserve, growled o'er the sea,
He landed. Ere one cumbrous limb of all
The monstrous armaments of Spain could move
His ships were stored; and ere the sword of Spain
Stirred in its crusted sheath, Bayona town
Beheld an empty sea; for like a dream
The pirate fleet had vanished, none knew whither.
But, in its visible stead, invisible fear
Filled the vast rondure of the sea and sky
As with the omnipresent soul of Drake.
Then once again across the rolling sea
Great rumors rushed of how he had sacked the port
Of Cadiz and had swept along the coast
To Lisbon, where the whole armada lay,
Had snapped up prizes under its very nose,
And taunted Santa Cruz, High Admiral
Of Spain, striving to draw him out for fight,
And offering, if his course should lie that way,
To convoy him to Britain, taunted him
So bitterly that for once, in the world's eyes
A jest had power to kill; for Santa Cruz
Died with the spleen of it, since he could not move
Before the appointed season. Then there came
Flying back home, the Queen's old admiral
Borough, deserting Drake, and all aghast
At Drake's temerity; ' For,' he said, ' this man,
Thrust o'er my head against all precedent,
Bade me follow him into harbor mouths
A-flame with cannon like the jaws of death,
Whereat I much demurred; and straightway Drake
Clapped me in irons, me-an officer
And Admiral of the Queen; and, though my voice
Was all against it, plunged into the pit
Without me, left me with some word that burns
And rankles in me still, making me fear
The man was mad, some word of lonely seas
A desert island and a mutineer
And dead Magellan's gallows.
Was hardly safe with him.
To storm the Castle of St.
Sirs, my life
Why, he resolved
Vincent, sirs,
A castle on a cliff, grinning with guns,
Well-known impregnable! The Spaniards fear
Drake; but to see him land below it and bid
Surrender, sirs, the strongest fort of Spain
Without a blow, they laughed! And straightway he
With all the fury of Satan, turned that cliff
To hell itself. He sent down to the ships
For faggots, broken oars, beams, bowsprits, masts,
And piled them up against the outer gates,
Higher and higher, and fired them. There he stood
Amid the smoke and flame and cannon-shot,
This Admiral, like a common seaman, black
With soot, besmeared with blood, his naked arms
Full of great faggots, laboring like a giant
And roaring like Apollyon. Sirs, he is mad!
But did he take it, say you? Yea, he took it,
The mightiest stronghold on the coast of Spain,
Took it and tumbled all its big brass guns
Clattering over the cliffs into the sea.
But, sirs, ye need not raise a cheer so loud!
It is not warfare. 'Twas a madman's trick,
A devil's!'
I TELL you a tale to-night
Which a seaman told to me,
With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light
And a voice as low as the sea.
You could almost hear the stars
Twinkling up the sky,
And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars. And the same old waves go by,
Singing the same old song
As ages and ages ago,
While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night
With the things that he seemed to know.
A bare foot pattered on deck;
Ropes creaked; then-all grew still,
And he pointed his finger straight in my face
And growled, as a sea-dog will.
'Do'ee know who Nelson was?
That pore little shrivelled form,
With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve And a soul like a North Sea storm?
'Ask of the Devonshire men!
They know, and they'll tell you true; He wasn't the pore little chawed-up chap That Hardy thought he knew.
'He wasn't the man you think!
His patch was a dern disguise!
For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see, If they looked him in both his eyes.
'He was twice as big as he seemed;
But his clothes were cunningly made. He'd both of his hairy arms all right!
The sleeve was a trick of the trade.
'You've heard of sperrits, no doubt;
Well, there's more in the matter than that! But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve, And he wasn't the laced cocked-hat.
|