 | English Roses |  |
INVICTA.
Rode a war-ship strong and stately, on the subject sea;
As a master steps sedately through his verdant lea,
And at leisure in his pleasure
Hears his servants' plea;
Over unmapt and unstreeted realms and roads as yet ungreeted,
Roofed by heaven's grey dome,
Making mid the waters wild as their freeborn chosen child
Everywhere her home;
Crossing tossing leagues of surf, as about his native turf
Sports a country boy,
Taking toll of wind and weather yoked with service true together
In her iron joy;
Castled on the conquered surges fawning at her feet,
Broken by the metal scourges to a homage meet;
On the bridled bitted brine, seated by a right divine.
As a master steps sedately through his verdant lea,
And at leisure in his pleasure
Hears his servants' plea;
Over unmapt and unstreeted realms and roads as yet ungreeted,
Roofed by heaven's grey dome,
Making mid the waters wild as their freeborn chosen child
Everywhere her home;
Crossing tossing leagues of surf, as about his native turf
Sports a country boy,
Taking toll of wind and weather yoked with service true together
In her iron joy;
Castled on the conquered surges fawning at her feet,
Broken by the metal scourges to a homage meet;
On the bridled bitted brine, seated by a right divine.
Terrible and clothed in thunder down the waves she went,
Ploughing those green hills asunder, awful, imminent;
Black and bearing death, and wearing
England's might unspent.
In her glory proud and peerless, bent on prey, and fast and fearless
Bringing judgment doom;
Swung her pennant loose and wide to the tributary tide
Gaily in the gloom.
Churning, spurning foam and froth flung as flowers on bridal troth,
Forth she moved like fate,
Threshing on in lonely wrath her inevitable path,
Grim, predestinate.
Every piston stroke appointed heaved her giant form,
Swashed her swirling sides anointed by the crashing storm;
Married to the ocean, yet as a slave beneath her set.
Ploughing those green hills asunder, awful, imminent;
Black and bearing death, and wearing
England's might unspent.
In her glory proud and peerless, bent on prey, and fast and fearless
Bringing judgment doom;
Swung her pennant loose and wide to the tributary tide
Gaily in the gloom.
Churning, spurning foam and froth flung as flowers on bridal troth,
Forth she moved like fate,
Threshing on in lonely wrath her inevitable path,
Grim, predestinate.
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Swashed her swirling sides anointed by the crashing storm;
Married to the ocean, yet as a slave beneath her set.
Rose her bulwarks with the billow in its measured sweep,
Calmly as upon a pillow rests a Queen in sleep,
With unswerving course preserving
Tenure of the deep.
Those gaunt throats that in mute hunger gaped, and soon ere day was younger
Would o'erfill their maw,
Smiled in peace and meek pretence, though with armèd insolence
Stern as Sinai's law.
Singing, stinging dashed the spray through the halyards and made play
On each wrinkled seam,
While the dreadful ship in scorn seemed enchanted and upborne
In an iron dream.
Scooping up the angry water silently she sped,
In her lurid lust of slaughter direful as the dead;
And the boding skies bent down, gathered to one ghastly frown.
Calmly as upon a pillow rests a Queen in sleep,
With unswerving course preserving
Tenure of the deep.
Those gaunt throats that in mute hunger gaped, and soon ere day was younger
Would o'erfill their maw,
Smiled in peace and meek pretence, though with armèd insolence
Stern as Sinai's law.
Singing, stinging dashed the spray through the halyards and made play
On each wrinkled seam,
While the dreadful ship in scorn seemed enchanted and upborne
In an iron dream.
Scooping up the angry water silently she sped,
In her lurid lust of slaughter direful as the dead;
And the boding skies bent down, gathered to one ghastly frown.
Fore and aft they cleared for action, all from truck to keel
Fit and in the smallest fraction burnished, stock or steel;
Ripe and ready, stout and steady
For the battle reel.
While, with lightning's livid omen, circling round her now the foemen
Drew a ring of fire,
Tall and trembling for the fray, as if spirits lost had sway
For their damned desire;
Hasting, tasting full the bliss of the souls in the Abyss,
Gallant ships a score
Hurling out their shot and shell fierce from mouths like flaming hell
On a cursèd shore.
Wood and metal flew in shivers from each armoured hem,
And the blood ran down in rivers right from stern to stem;
O'er the red dim sanded deck, streamed the price of every wreck.
Fit and in the smallest fraction burnished, stock or steel;
Ripe and ready, stout and steady
For the battle reel.
While, with lightning's livid omen, circling round her now the foemen
Drew a ring of fire,
Tall and trembling for the fray, as if spirits lost had sway
For their damned desire;
Hasting, tasting full the bliss of the souls in the Abyss,
Gallant ships a score
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On a cursèd shore.
Wood and metal flew in shivers from each armoured hem,
And the blood ran down in rivers right from stern to stem;
O'er the red dim sanded deck, streamed the price of every wreck.
Scuttled half and half now shattered was the hostile fleet,
While the Invicta bruised and battered still was death to meet;
Lightly rolling, as one strolling
Down his village street.
Ere a man could say his credo rushed the ruining torpedo
Or the ram went home,
Blotting out with strangled cry each adventurous enemy
Like some finished tome.
Swearing, tearing screeched the bolt with a rending and revolt
On its settled prey,
And with dirges dark leapt out bane from every snorting snout
In that smother grey;
As they belched and spat and sputtered fate and fury round,
And with tempest music fluttered wretches not yet drowned;
Each blank nozzle reaped its own, in the harvest it had sown.
While the Invicta bruised and battered still was death to meet;
Lightly rolling, as one strolling
Down his village street.
Ere a man could say his credo rushed the ruining torpedo
Or the ram went home,
Blotting out with strangled cry each adventurous enemy
Like some finished tome.
Swearing, tearing screeched the bolt with a rending and revolt
On its settled prey,
And with dirges dark leapt out bane from every snorting snout
In that smother grey;
As they belched and spat and sputtered fate and fury round,
And with tempest music fluttered wretches not yet drowned;
Each blank nozzle reaped its own, in the harvest it had sown.
There in blighted bulks and blasted heaps her victims lay,
All dismantled and dismasted round the boar at bay,
While like vernal floods infernal
Hail did never stay;
Shrieking shrapnel and the growling guns and hubbub of the howling
Wind that chanted still,
Made a tumult like the fall of an universe and all
Pandemonium's will.
Ashes, flashes, light and cloud, wove the shadow of a shroud
On that solemn stage,
As she mingled earth and sky in one utter agony
With her iron rage.
Bursting boiler, crimson scupper wrote with funeral pen,
And the sharks had sanguine supper on the meat of men;
Ah, with blood of mangled flesh, billows salt waxed sweet and fresh.
All dismantled and dismasted round the boar at bay,
While like vernal floods infernal
Hail did never stay;
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Wind that chanted still,
Made a tumult like the fall of an universe and all
Pandemonium's will.
Ashes, flashes, light and cloud, wove the shadow of a shroud
On that solemn stage,
As she mingled earth and sky in one utter agony
With her iron rage.
Bursting boiler, crimson scupper wrote with funeral pen,
And the sharks had sanguine supper on the meat of men;
Ah, with blood of mangled flesh, billows salt waxed sweet and fresh.
Yet with colours fair and flying the Invicta rode
Fierce among the dead and dying in her sad abode,
While in acres seething breakers
Beat a burial ode.
Adversaries scathed and scattered and with leaden splashes spattered
Grovelled at her side,
As she breasted wind and wave and of ocean dug a grave
In her passion's pride.
Riddled, fiddled on by doom floundered through the glare and gloom
Bloated bulks of ships,
Mutilated now and smashed helplessly as eggshells, lashed
By her murderous lips;
All the fiends appeared in surly tumult to have flocked,
Mixed in maddening hurly burly nevermore unlocked;
And the shouts of hopes and fears, sounded as from distant years.
Fierce among the dead and dying in her sad abode,
While in acres seething breakers
Beat a burial ode.
Adversaries scathed and scattered and with leaden splashes spattered
Grovelled at her side,
As she breasted wind and wave and of ocean dug a grave
In her passion's pride.
Riddled, fiddled on by doom floundered through the glare and gloom
Bloated bulks of ships,
Mutilated now and smashed helplessly as eggshells, lashed
By her murderous lips;
All the fiends appeared in surly tumult to have flocked,
Mixed in maddening hurly burly nevermore unlocked;
And the shouts of hopes and fears, sounded as from distant years.
Engines of destruction stuttered messages of woes,
Hurtling on the heavy-shuttered and enshielded foes,
And the rattle of the battle
Brake through earthquake throes.
Crippled tools that scarce would stammer hate, machines that yet did hammer
Wrack and rapine's roar,
Mingled as if sworn and set Babel had with Bedlam met
In that curtain hoar.
Crashing, mashing metal ribs easily as baby cribs
Poured the shell and shot,
Splintering and peeling fast all that faced the mortal blast
Hissing-ripe and hot.
Butting down and blindly blurring every new advance,
While her funnels still kept purring to the devil's dance,
Lone, with lightning sheathed and shod, the great ship in triumph trod.
Hurtling on the heavy-shuttered and enshielded foes,
And the rattle of the battle
135
Crippled tools that scarce would stammer hate, machines that yet did hammer
Wrack and rapine's roar,
Mingled as if sworn and set Babel had with Bedlam met
In that curtain hoar.
Crashing, mashing metal ribs easily as baby cribs
Poured the shell and shot,
Splintering and peeling fast all that faced the mortal blast
Hissing-ripe and hot.
Butting down and blindly blurring every new advance,
While her funnels still kept purring to the devil's dance,
Lone, with lightning sheathed and shod, the great ship in triumph trod.
In a threatening sky of scarlet set the ghostly sun,
And beneath a curtain starlit by the stabbing gun
Ever pounding and confounding
More that chaos dun,
Shapes like shadows crossed with motion sinister and in devotion
Terrible and true,
Worked the many-mouthing ire in the furnace of the fire,
Though their lives were due;
Gliding, guiding with a thin thread of glory dusk and din,
As they looked and leant
Forth into that turmoil wild so defiling and defil'd
And for evil meant;
Scribbled here, it seemed, and spotted on the canvas red,
Each one at his post alloted kept his gory bed;
If with tortured gesture, some fought the sentence that would come.
And beneath a curtain starlit by the stabbing gun
Ever pounding and confounding
More that chaos dun,
Shapes like shadows crossed with motion sinister and in devotion
Terrible and true,
Worked the many-mouthing ire in the furnace of the fire,
Though their lives were due;
Gliding, guiding with a thin thread of glory dusk and din,
As they looked and leant
Forth into that turmoil wild so defiling and defil'd
And for evil meant;
Scribbled here, it seemed, and spotted on the canvas red,
Each one at his post alloted kept his gory bed;
If with tortured gesture, some fought the sentence that would come.
Suddenly the hostile clamour died away and bowed
Hardly to the vengeful glamour of that shining shroud,
Where with riving shocks and striving
Flashed the thunder cloud.
Figures grimed and pinched and pallid for a moment rose and rallied
Through the reek and smoke,
Struggled with despairing cry in their dreadful destiny
And unbending broke;
Haggard, laggard faces dim thrust athwart confusion grim
Gasped with stertorous breath,
And with writhing reckless hands cast their curses and demands
At that iron death.
Till at last, when all were scattered by her conquering storm,
Cheering, flag on high if tattered, sank the fateful form—
When no foe remained to kill—to the end Invicta still.
Hardly to the vengeful glamour of that shining shroud,
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Flashed the thunder cloud.
Figures grimed and pinched and pallid for a moment rose and rallied
Through the reek and smoke,
Struggled with despairing cry in their dreadful destiny
And unbending broke;
Haggard, laggard faces dim thrust athwart confusion grim
Gasped with stertorous breath,
And with writhing reckless hands cast their curses and demands
At that iron death.
Till at last, when all were scattered by her conquering storm,
Cheering, flag on high if tattered, sank the fateful form—
When no foe remained to kill—to the end Invicta still.
| English Roses | |