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

Where the storm wind howls with a human voice, where the long swell flings its spray
Up cliffs where never a green leaf breaks the gloom of the wintry gray;

And still it blew from the frozen pole, and they beat in the icy breath,
The Pelican and the Marygold and the barque Elizabeth.

The heart of his men was broken, and ever the discord grew,
And a haunting dread of that unknown world crept over his simple crew;

Till they wrought with a grudging labour, till they answered with sullen lips,
And the breath of a mutinous murmur went up from the weary ships.

But the general watched and waited till the time should be ripe for speech;
Till the hidden evil had come to light, and the sickness craved the leech.

They had won to an inlet isle-enclosed, by the reckoning fifty south,
And the battered fleet put in at last through the reefs that barred its mouth.

There were spars to be refitted, and the standing gear was worn,
The hulls were foul from the long sea-way, and the sails were frayed and torn.

There was never a ship sailed here but once, and now it was fifty years
Since the great Magellan anchored to deal with his mutineers;

There was never a trace of living thing in that arm of the lonely sea,
But high on the cliff in the silent world stood the frame of his gallows tree;

And there, clean picked of the vultures, and washed by the driving rain,
The bones of a man swung to and fro, held up in a rusty chain.

They stared at the silent witness of the great sea-captain's hand,
And the sense of an ill-foreboding came up from that dismal strand.

Now once more here at this world's far end among the boulders gray
Shall a court be called for judgment in bleak St. Julian's Bay.

For at last the leech has probed the wound and the bitter charge is framed,
Long-hidden things shall come to light and the traitor's name be named.

So Drake has called his captains and the mates and the volunteers,
And Master Thomas Doughty shall be tried before his peers;

As ran the law in England, so ran their law at sea,
Who stood within its danger might claim his due degree.

The chaplain brought the book to kiss, and swore them man by man,
And grimly that mid-winter morn the ocean court began.

And witness after witness rose, to tell the sordid tale
Of all the arts the man had used to make the venture fail.

Then he, since Drake so humbled him, replied with taunt and jest,
And by his own lips' railing stood a traitor self-confessed;

There were those at home in England of the counter-plot, said he,
Who knew the end of this fool's design long ere they had put to sea:

King Philip had ambassadors to guard the rights of Spain,
And when the watchman waketh the wolf will prowl in vain.

But the eye of Drake grew cold and hard with the glance it was ill to meet,
And he called the crews together to the least man in the fleet;

From first to last he had said no word till then for good or ill—
And he faced his wavering captains while his trumpet blew the “still.”

He stood erect in the midst of all with his drawn sword in his hand
At the foot of Magellan's gallows by the edge of the dreary land,

While the chill wind moaned in the gully and the waves boomed far away
On the sunken reefs and the broken crags at the gate of the wintry bay.

And he said: “My masters, hearken, friends old and comrades new,
While I tell you all that my purpose holds and the things we have sailed to do.

“There was no man questioned whither on the day we set to sea,
I am used to be trusted all in all by the men that sail with me;

“But your discords, aye and your mutinies, have left me nigh distraught,
I must have this left, my masters, though the price be dearly bought;

“I would have you know that the gentlemen shall take their place with the crew,
Shall haul and draw with the seamen when their captain bids them to;

“I will brook no more division—I would know who dares refuse.
God's life! am I not your master?—I will break you all if I choose!

“Let the Pasha's men stand forward, you five that were with me then,
When we looked across to the unknown side from the tree in Darien.

“Do you mind my oath in the camp-fire light, how I swore, God helping me,
I would sail a ship with an English flag through the heart of the Golden Sea!

“Since then five years have come and gone, and now, so He hath willed,
The oath that I swore in Darien shall surely be fulfilled.

“For it fell in the appointed time that the Queen, whom God defend,
Had heard her subjects' bitter cry from Berwick to Land's End:

“And since the Spanish King protests his arm may not control
The Holy Office in his realm, which lie be on his soul,

“Since in the councils of her peers she had found small help or stay,
And still unchallenged at her feet the King's defiance lay;

“So in her bitter need she turned from the grave and proved, and wise,
And she called a poor sea-captain who had found grace in her eyes.

“And thus it chanced upon a day, a year gone by and more,
There came a summons to the court from the great who guard her door.

“A hand put back the arras and beckoned round the screen,
And I was kneeling at the feet of England's injured Queen.

“She stood against the oriel frame and looked me up and down,
Who wondered how so frail a brow could bear so great a crown:

“‘And this is Captain Francis Drake, and that the guilty head
My kinsman Philip long hath craved, and craveth still,’ she said.

“She won my heart with mild reproof—with frowns that died in smiles,
She learned the tale of all we did beyond the western isles;

“She hearkened and she never tired as I told it all again,
How we stripped the mules at Nombre and scared the Spanish Main:

“And then herself, with broken voice, she spake of all her woes:
The peace proclaimed where no peace is; the bitter cry that rose

“From cities where her merchant fleets lie idle by the quays,
With rotting sail and fouling keel, debarred from half the seas;

“From little havens in the cliffs, where their mothers watch in vain
For the lads that the fever dungeons will never yield again;

“From wretches maimed in torture cells, whose bodies show the scar
Where peace has struck the craven stroke they had never brooked in war;

“From those an alien judge hath doomed, and who for conscience' sake
Were greater than their fear of death and English at the stake,—

“And womanlike she sighed and said, ‘And is there none to aid?’
And queenly with a burst of scorn, ‘Are all but I afraid?’

“So there and then with halting breath, but all the brain on fire,
I told our glorious Lady Liege of all my heart's desire.

“I told her of the great South Sea, the secret of our foe,
Where unperceived of prying eyes his Plate-fleets come and go—

“How there the sword he wields so well, the serried pikes of Spain,
The guns that menace every sea are wrought for England's bane;

“And so the glorious scheme was planned to raid the Golden Sea,—
Now let me know who turns his back on England and on me!

“Still southlier yet through seas unsailed Magellan found the gate
Where the sister oceans meet and mix at war in the stormy strait:

“And though it shall blow ten times as wild, though the pass be blind with snow,
Though its whirlpools spin with the drifted ice,—where he went I will go;

“Though the foul fiend have dominion there as the seamen's fables say,
Though the devil in hell would hold me back,—I have sworn to find the way;

“But when we have won to the farther side, to the breeding seas of the seal,
We shall sail on the gentlest ocean that ever has rocked a keel:

“For these crags that freeze on the eastward face slope green to the westward blue,
And a land breeze gently northing bears up for rich Peru.

“There, where the treasure galleons ply secure from all attack,
Drop down to Valparaiso and bring the bullion back,

“I look to find the ransom that will more than buy again
The lives of all the English lads that rot to death in Spain.

“Then when the lockers burst with gems, and when the ballast hold
Of every ship in this my fleet is packed with bars of gold,

“We'll trust the luck of the sun's wake still, and it's Westward Ho once more,
And home, my lads, by an ocean-track ship never has tried before!

“Now if I have told you only here what but I and my captains knew,
It was that I learned in Venta Cruz of the harm loose tongues may do;

“Therefore whoso hath no stomach to bear hand in this emprise,
Hath welcome and leave to take his choice as it seemeth best in his eyes;

“Let him go aboard of the Marygold—let him steer for home this day,—
But look to it whoso chooseth that he steer no other way;

“For I swear to you as God liveth, wherever my bark be blown,
I will sink his ship if I meet him, though he be of my blood and bone.”

It was Captain Philip Wynter first, of the barque Elizabeth,
Stept forth and clasped the general's hand, and he said, “For life and death!”

And Thomas Moon the carpenter, the oldest hand at sea,
Spake up and swore a grisly oath, “Lord do so unto me,

“If ever a skulk shall turn his back while I have a head to break
On the spoiling of the Philistine and my Captain Francis Drake!”

And there rose from twice a hundred throats a mighty English cheer,
The voice of hearts in unison the sea-queen loves to hear.

And Doughty heard it far away where he paced the lonely shore,
He heard and knew his doom was sealed—but the general spake once more;

He said they were timid surgeons who were loath to use the knife,—
He spoke of their state endangered by their jealousies and strife,

Of the rule of ocean broken with brawls and mean affrays,
Of the slights put on the seamen, contentions, doubt, dispraise;

And all that smouldering discontent had rallied round one name,
And the very hand he had trusted most was the hand that fanned the flame;

Gentle and brave he had deemed him of old, of purpose steady and pure,
Master of manifold learning, venturous, strong to endure;

But for all the love he had borne him once, yet he dared not be untrue
To the Queen's high expectation and the safety of his crew,

And so, since warnings naught availed, and the evil might not mend,
He had called a court in judgment on his own familiar friend:

And there they had heard from his lips confessed the bond he had pledged to the foe,
The trust betrayed and the plot to bring this scheme to its overthrow.

“Henceforth,” he said, “the watchman wakes, the foe has a thousand eyes,
And wealth and fame, or the gallows-tree, are the end of this emprise:

“Let no man look for quarter, henceforth who sails with Drake,
I warn him, if the voyage fail, his life will pay the stake;

“Henceforth we are bound on a venture that is well-nigh past my wit,
We have set three kings by the ears, my lads, and we needs must through with it;

“Howbeit I trust that the galleons will cruise on our trail in vain,
For we shall fare by the southern pass while they watch by the western main:

“But there waits one doom for treason at sea as it is on land,—
Who deems his crime has been worthy death, let him hold forth his hand!”

Then a murmur rose from the listening ranks, an oath, and an angry cry,
And twice a hundred clenching fists condemned the wretch to die.

The crowd fell back, the general passed to where Doughty strode aloof—
Henceforth in all his words and deeds might no man find reproof;

He had played the stake for life or death as a gambler throws the cast,
And so, like a gallant gentleman, he would bear him to the last:

He heard his doom with fearless eyes, he doffed his hat to say,
“My cause be with the Judge of hearts until that latter day!”

He craved no grace save such an end as his gentle blood might bear,
To have his dues as a Christian man, and to shrive his soul in prayer.

So it came to pass on the second day that the crews were called ashore,
And they spread a banquet near the strand of the best they had in store;

And there, unseen in the chill gray dawn, high up on a crest of rock,
In the face of Magellan's gallows-tree, Tom Moon set up the block:

They dressed an altar near at hand with the red cross banner spread,
Where the chaplain, stoled and surpliced, set on the wine and bread:

And Drake and Thomas Doughty knelt down there side by side,
In Nature's vast and awful shrine above the yellow tide,

While Master Fletcher ministered and blessed the bread and brake,
And gave the cup in brotherhood to Doughty and to Drake.

And those rough souls were awed and cowed, while moaned the rainy wind,
And the deep voice of ocean boomed its measured chant behind.

Then, the long quarrel reconciled, each kissed the other's cheek,
And held his hand for a little space, but no man heard them speak.

So they passed to where the board was spread in a sheltered spot to lee,
They made good cheer together there, each after his degree.

But Doughty filled a cup and cried a pledge in Spanish wine,
“Here's luck in all your ventures, lads, and a better end than mine!”

And in a little while he rose, and with a courtier's bow,
“With your good leave, my captain,” he said, “I am ready now.”

They climbed the crest of broken hill to where the block was set,
As men unmoved by craven fear, by passion or regret.

And Doughty passed along the ranks with a word to each and all,
And as he knelt to try the block the rain began to fall.

But Drake unclasped his seaman's cloak and spread it on the ground,
And bared the sword his arm alone might wield in honour bound;

The shivering blade whirled round and fell cold, cruel, swift and keen.
“So perish all her enemies!” said Drake; “God save the Queen!”

He spread his cloak about the corse, and raised the severed head,
The shuddering crews drew slowly back and left him with the dead:

And long he gazed in that pale face he shielded from the rain;
Thereafter, saith the chronicle, Drake seldom smiled again.

The grave is on that bleak foreshore, and the crime is purged away,
But steadfast stands while England stands her ocean law, “Obey!”