Ballads of the Fleet and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

He searched the dawn with his keen sea eyes, for there sailed neither Dutch nor Don,
But veiled his tops to the English flag in the days of Admiral John.

And need was then for wary eyes, for the news was fresh to hand
Of galleons off the Irish coast with companies to land.

The white mist rose, a bare mile off she stood in over the bay,
And she bore her topsails proudly as one that had right of way:

“If ever the dead came back to life,” it was old John Hawkins spake,
“I had sworn to that rig in a thousand ships for my kinsman's Frankie Drake.”

And e'en as he spake the red cross flag shook out from her taper mast,
A thunder of guns broke right and left and the Hind was home at last!

Her beardless boys were seasoned men with necks set firm, and face
Tanned ruddy by the winds and suns that shape the sea-born race;

Her fluttering sails were patched and frayed, her bulwarks all a wreck,
The pitch ran through her open seams and stained her splintered deck;

Her painted prow was rusty brown with the crust of alien seas,
And half her ports were blind of the guns she had dropped in Celebes:

But every hand was up on deck, or aloft on mast and spar,
To cheer the dropping anchor down behind the harbour bar.

Oh, golden spread the Edgcumbe woods and purpling leaned the down,
And lingering wreaths of yellow furze lit up the moorland crown;

The world of home lay passing fair beyond the weary seas,
As all the bells began to ring and the folk ran down the quays.

From house to house, from street to street, the news ran far and wide,
To Dart and Tamar, east and west, and up the country-side.

The dead had all been duly mourned long since, time out of mind,
There was only clasp of welcome hands and mirth on board the Hind.

They have brought the Hind to Deptford town, they have moored her by the quay,
A bridge of plank athwart her waist—she will go no more to sea.

But pilgrims come from far and near and climb her poop in pride,
And many a barge from Tower steps drops down there on the tide;

There's not a 'prentice in the Fleet but has felt a sailor born
The day he saw the famous ship that found and named the Horn;

And scholars learnèd in the lore of great adventures past
Have turned conceits and epigrams to hang about her mast;

While Drake's tall lads, in silk and stuff, went swaggering up and down,
With tales that turned the staidest heads, and ale ran free in town.

But now the windows all are wide, there are flags in every street,
For the Queen herself has come to-day to sit with Drake at meat.

The Golden Hind's great ordnance has fired the last salute,
The crew are marshalled on the poop with drum and fife and flute;

The board is spread between the decks among the brazen guns,
For to-day the great Queen honours the bravest of her sons.

The captain of her guard was there in doublet slashed and pearled,
For Hatton's was the proud device they had carried round the world;

And subtle Master Walsingham with the long thin nervous hands,
Who knew the minds and manners of many folk and lands;

And there was Martin Frobisher, the pilot of the Pole,
And Grenville, than whom England held no knightlier sailor soul.

There sat Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the untimely lost—not yet
In the vengeful night of ocean scorned his storm-tossed star had set;

And Walter Raleigh new to court, and flushed with fortune's smile,
The travelled Earl of Cumberland and Christopher Carlile;

With Sanderson, the man of maps, who drew the first sea-card,
And Osborne, Mayor of London town, and the elders of his ward,

Whose merchant fleets shall sail henceforth untrammelled east or west;
And they spoke of deeds adventurous and all the world's unrest.

So went she forth accompanied, that unforgotten day
She flung the Spaniard's challenge back, defiant; these were they

Who first dared dream and dreaming dared—while all was yet to do,
To roll the bounds of empire back beyond the bounds they knew;

To bind the winds their bondsmen, and hold the tide their slave,
And claim for island England dominion o'er the wave.

“Now hearken, lords and gentlemen, we have heard to-day,” said she,
“Of the world beyond the sunset and the sea beyond the sea,

“But of piracies and plunderings, of trespass, raid, and wrong—
Of this we learned from Philip's self, and the tale is passing long;

“And still my kinsman claims to know whose flag this bark hath flown
Which Master Drake hath dared maintain through seas he claims his own.

“Now therefore to such questionings let this my answer be,
Down, truant rover, down, and crave my pardon on your knee!”

Then he who fear had never known stood blanched before her seat,
Ungirt his sword and bowed and knelt to lay it at her feet.

And roundly there she rated him, and looked him up and down,
With eyes that knew a true man's worth, and smiled away their frown.

She bared his blade, she rose a queen, a queen to mar or make—
“My little pirate, rise,” she cried, “and rise Sir Francis Drake!”