 | A Ballad for the Tercentenary of The Spanish Armada |  |
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WRITTEN FOR THE TERCENTENARY OF THE SPANISH ARMADA.
I.
“Now glory be to the Lord in HeavenFor His mercies on the sea!
And glory be to the men of Devon—
And all Englishmen” say we—
And all Scotsmen and all Irish;—
For they fought for England too,
And every Spaniard slew
Who fell upon their coasts and isles from Orkney down to Clare.
Let the Cannon beat the air,
And the joyous trumpets blare,
And the bells ring, ring to every town
Our glorious victory to crown.
II.
For he blew, and they were scatteredOn the sunny shores of Spain;
And in our griesly channel,
Lo! he woke the West again.
But our sailors love a breeze,
And the narrow stormy seas,
And they hailed the black South-Wester
As an Angel of the Lord,
Who the vials of his vengeance
On the vaunting foe out-poured.
III.
What a battle of battles was this, with the wealth of the world,And the flower of its armies and ships on one little isle hurled,
What marvel if it had been swept; from the hills to the shore,
As though it went under the ice of the deluge once more?
But the wind rose up out of the West, the wind of the West,
Who rouses the stud of the storm-wave with wild, white crest,
Which the Englishmen curbs and rides,
Unblenched by its furious strides,
When he homes to the isle of his birth,
From the uttermost ends of the earth,
And loves of all steeds the best
The wind of the West.
The steed of the storm-wave roused from its summer rest.
IV.
The Englishmen, lying at bay under Cawsand Head,Leapt forth to bestride the storm at the foeman's side,
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The hounds of the sea tore his flanks till the waves were dyed.
V.
Ye know the battle's tale—the Spaniards crowding sail.Invaders—but invaded by these ban-dogs of the gale;
To-day the battle raging—with the English scarce assailed,
And dogging on the morrow—when the English powder failed;
But the Spanish crews were falling like dead leaves between their decks,
And the half their hulls were battered till they leaked and logged like wrecks,
For the English shot came crashing through and through
Their backs—as broad as turtles as they heeled and heeled to lee
And their cannon on the larboard swallowed choking draughts of sea,
And their cannon on the starboard tore the air with fruitless prayer
As the shot above our topsails flew and flew;
While the channel, neath their scuppers, changed its hue.
VI.
All day like lions roared the guns and like wild bulls the breeze,But with light hearts the Englishmen bestrode the plunging seas,
And slashed and battered at the Dons until the dying light,
Strange fears in the strange waters raised and spurred the Dons to fight,
And our stout five who held their fleet before our powder failed,
As one by one our guns were starved, could only—be outsailed.
VII.
But a noble Capitana, as their galleons clashed together,Grinding sides and crossing topmasts, in the cruel channel weather
Lost her bowsprit and her topmast and lay crippled like a knight
From his arrow-stricken charger hurled to earth in some old fight,
Spur-entangled in his surcoat, crushed beneath its armours weight,
Were it death or were it bondage, he could only bow to fate.
So the stately Capitana bowed—it chanced with small disgrace,
For she fell to great Sir Francis last returning from the chase.
VIII.
Safe within the roads of Calais, from the sea-dogs safe at last,With shorn plumes and battered chargers had the hunted hunters passed,
Looking down his lordly galleons towering in long array,
Was it wonder that the Spaniard to his puffed up heart should say?
Lo the English—wolves and jackals—should not dare to fight us here,
They shall look upon our glory and be smitten with a fear.
As a bird that flees destruction when a hand is on her nest,
Sees from far but dares not guard the ravished offspring of her breast,
They shall flee to the horizon, while we lay upon their coasts;
Parma's Prince and Alva's pikemen to confound their feeble hosts,
And with Mass at Canterbury and all London purged with fire,
For our losses and their insults wring a debt of vengeance dire.
IX.
Like a castle in a forest rose their fleet that summer night,With its stately masts and poops o'ertowering many a tower in height,
And young nobles pacing proudly, fired for coming victories,
Dreaming one of blue-eyed captives, one of vengeance to be his;—
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Dim shapes, that darker grew,
And then their came long tongues of flame,
And every Spaniard knew
That the fireships were upon them,—and they fled
Each one as he was able, slipping anchor, cutting cable
Without thought of where he sped to, so he sped.
X.
And the English drove among them, smiting here and smiting there,While the Spaniards smote the air
In their struggles to be free and out to sea,
And the flower of Spain were falling
Like the flowers in the hail:
And the lofty ships were crashing
Like old Elm-trees in a gale;
And the land was on their lee.
XI.
And our Seymours and our HowardsAdded glory to their names,
To their grand old English names,
With the immemorial claims
Of a hundred olden fields
On their Shields.
XII.
And then arose a cry of Francis Drake,And the staunchest turned to fly for his name's sake,
Who had swept the Spanish main
Like a Carib hurricane,
Since his fighting-days began;
And who fought more like a devil than a man.
XIII.
And then galleon fell on galleon, leaving scant sea-room between,Herded in between the English and the shoals of Gravelines
Till it seemed the great Armada must, ere night, have found its grave.
In the mercy of the English, or the mercy of the wave.
Nay, but Spain might praise “Our Lady,”
For the English powder failed,
And their ships hauled off to windward
And the friendly night prevailed.
XIV.
Safety guiled them in the darkness, but the morn their peril showedFor three cannon-shot to windward Drake and Howard and Seymour rode,
And three cannon-shot to leeward, growled the breakers on the sands,
Ancient pitfalls to the spoiler of the Orphan of the Lands.
Nay, but Philip, praise St. Lawrence!
Keep thou well this day his feast!
For behold, while mass was chaunted,
Flew the wind from West to East.
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XV.
To his council rose Sidonia, the Admiral of Spain,
“Will ye force the narrow channel and their fleet?
Or brave the North Sea tempests and the weeks upon the main?”
And he muttered, as he sank into his seat,
“What if Orkney were the swiftest way to Spain?”
“Will ye force the narrow channel and their fleet?
Or brave the North Sea tempests and the weeks upon the main?”
And he muttered, as he sank into his seat,
“What if Orkney were the swiftest way to Spain?”
“Then,” quoth Don Diego Florez, the Commander of Castile,
“Brave the ocean, for no storm that ever blew
Could sack us like the English with their unbelieving zeal.
It were hell unloosed to fight our passage through,”
So answered the Commander of Castile.
“Brave the ocean, for no storm that ever blew
Could sack us like the English with their unbelieving zeal.
It were hell unloosed to fight our passage through,”
So answered the Commander of Castile.
But the knightly-souled Oquendo cried “The banner of Castile,
It must never turn its back upon a foe;
Let us meet the unbeliever with a true believer's zeal;
And if then we perish—better even so,
Than to stoop the maiden banner of Castile.”
It must never turn its back upon a foe;
Let us meet the unbeliever with a true believer's zeal;
And if then we perish—better even so,
Than to stoop the maiden banner of Castile.”
But the wind flew back to westward, till it roared the South-west,
Mother Mary and St. Lawrence, where be ye?
With the English to the windward, and the wind they love the best?
It were easier to cheat the raging sea,
Than the English on the wind from the South-west.
Mother Mary and St. Lawrence, where be ye?
With the English to the windward, and the wind they love the best?
It were easier to cheat the raging sea,
Than the English on the wind from the South-west.
“Northward,” cried Diego Florez, “for the English follow fast!
Crowd on sail until your masts are like to snap!
For their cannons smite more surely than the billow or the blast.
We were better in a tempest than a trap.
There is Scotland . . . . and the English follow fast.”
Crowd on sail until your masts are like to snap!
For their cannons smite more surely than the billow or the blast.
We were better in a tempest than a trap.
There is Scotland . . . . and the English follow fast.”
And two days and nights the English raced, like hell hounds to the North,
Tearing grimly at the Spaniards in their flight,
Till they clove the waste of waters ever wrath beyond the Forth,
And drew homeward jeering “Lo, ye cannot fight.
We will leave the winds and waves to find you graves.
Tearing grimly at the Spaniards in their flight,
Till they clove the waste of waters ever wrath beyond the Forth,
And drew homeward jeering “Lo, ye cannot fight.
We will leave the winds and waves to find you graves.
XVI.
History tells not the tale of that fight with the main,Save when she echoes a moan for some galleon of Spain,
Cast upon rocky-limbed isle or precipitous shore,
With its crew by the barbarous clansmen for vengeance or gain,
Noble and knight, and priest, and slave at the oar,
All, without pity or note, in one Hecatomb slain;
Nor know we more,
Save that the half of the ships never havened again.
XVII.
Ring out the bells of Plymouth! Ring out the bells of Paul!Fly the flags of the Thames! Fire the guns of the Tower!
England is freed for ever, Rome, from thy broken thrall,
And here beginneth the end of the Spaniards power.
ENVOI.
But this is an olden story: the seed of the men who fought
Have ousted the seed from the Spaniard from realms as wide as the world,
And wherever the waves could waft them, a wonder of wars have wrought,
Till the sun never sets on the empire where England's flag is unfurled.
Have ousted the seed from the Spaniard from realms as wide as the world,
And wherever the waves could waft them, a wonder of wars have wrought,
Till the sun never sets on the empire where England's flag is unfurled.
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But her pulses with peace are sluggish, and her arms are rusty with rest,
And she, who has fought the world over, no longer is ready to fight.
O God! that no foe may leap on her with langour and stupor oppressed.
And the fabric in centuries founded o'erthrow in a single night.
And she, who has fought the world over, no longer is ready to fight.
O God! that no foe may leap on her with langour and stupor oppressed.
And the fabric in centuries founded o'erthrow in a single night.
We have money enough and to spare, we have men of the fibre we need,
We have forges for work lying idle, and smiths who are starving for food;
There are warnings the blind might start at, if our Rulers would only heed;
There is war in the air in the East, and the West has no peace in her mood.
We have forges for work lying idle, and smiths who are starving for food;
There are warnings the blind might start at, if our Rulers would only heed;
There is war in the air in the East, and the West has no peace in her mood.
O would that the forges were ringing all over our spiritless land,
And would that our workers were earning their famishing children bread,
With giving our heritage guard from the spoilers devouring hand,
And our rulers the right to say boldly what Cromwell and Chatham said.
And would that our workers were earning their famishing children bread,
With giving our heritage guard from the spoilers devouring hand,
And our rulers the right to say boldly what Cromwell and Chatham said.
O rouse ye, our Rulers, and see that the joints of her armour are sure;
O sharpen her sword for the combat, and have a good steed in the stall;
And, pause if ye will, ere ye challenge, if only ye make it secure
That the fabric of ages shall not like the ramparts of Jericho fall.
O sharpen her sword for the combat, and have a good steed in the stall;
And, pause if ye will, ere ye challenge, if only ye make it secure
That the fabric of ages shall not like the ramparts of Jericho fall.
I have sung you an olden story! St. Paul's, where the bells were rung,
In the Fire of London was swallowed two hundred old, autumns ago;
And over the burnt old minster her veil hath oblivion flung;
And we are forgetting how England, of old, would have met a foe.
In the Fire of London was swallowed two hundred old, autumns ago;
And over the burnt old minster her veil hath oblivion flung;
And we are forgetting how England, of old, would have met a foe.
But St. Andrew's rings triumph to Plymouth, as when Drake rounded the world,
And he who goes down into Devon and paces on Plymouth Hoe,
Can feel as men felt when Sir Francis Drake his famous defiance hurled,
And swore he would win at his bowls, and have time then to conquer the foe.
And he who goes down into Devon and paces on Plymouth Hoe,
Can feel as men felt when Sir Francis Drake his famous defiance hurled,
And swore he would win at his bowls, and have time then to conquer the foe.
DOUGLAS B. W. SLADEN.
| A Ballad for the Tercentenary of The Spanish Armada | |