Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the ocean’s bosome unespied,
From a small boat, that rowed along,
The listening winds received this song.
“What should we do but sing His praise!
That led us through the watery maze,
Unto an Isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own.
Where He the huge sea monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs;
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms, and prelates’ rage.
He gave us this eternal spring,
Which here enamels everything;
And sends the fowls to us in care,
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright,
Like golden lamps in a green night;
And does in the pomegranates close,
Jewels more rich than Ormus show’s.
He makes the figs, our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet:
But apples, plants of such a price!
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars, chosen by His hand,
From Lebanon, He stores the land:
And makes the hollow seas, that roar,
Proclaim the ambergris on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The gospel’s pearl upon our coast:
And in these rocks, for us did frame
A temple, where to sound His name.
O let our voice His praise exalt,
Till it arrive at heavens vault!
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding, may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay.”
Thus sung they, in the English boat,
An holy and a cheerful note,
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.
Andrew Marvell
(1621–1678)
Among the dwellers in the silent fields
The natural heart is touched, and public way
And crowded street resound with ballad strains,
Inspired by one whose very name bespeaks
Favour divine, exalting human love;
Whom, since her birth on bleak Northumbria’s coast,
Known unto few but prized as far as known,
A single Act endears to high and low
Through the whole land—to Manhood, moved in spite
Of the world’s freezing cares—to generous Youth—
To Infancy, that lisps her praise—to Age
Whose eye reflects it, glistening through a tear
Of tremulous admiration. Such true fame
Awaits her now; but, verily, good deeds
Do not imperishable record find
Save in the rolls of heaven, where hers may live
A theme for angels, when they celebrate
The high-souled virtues which forgetful earth
Has witnessed. Oh! that winds and waves could speak
Of things which their united power called forth
From the pure depths of her humanity!
A Maiden gentle, yet, at duty’s call,
Firm and unflinching, as the Lighthouse reared
On the Island-rock, her lonely dwelling-place;
Or like the invincible Rock itself that braves,
Age after age, the hostile elements,
As when it guarded holy Cuthbert’s cell.
All night the storm had raged, nor ceased, nor paused,
When, as day broke, the Maid, through misty air,
Espies far off a Wreck, amid the surf,
Beating on one of those disastrous isles
Half of a Vessel, half—no more; the rest
Had vanished, swallowed up with all that there
Had for the common safety striven in vain,
Or thither thronged for refuge. With quick glance
Daughter and Sire through optic-glass discern,
Clinging about the remnant of this Ship,
Creatures— how precious in the Maiden’s sight!
For whom, belike, the old Man grieves still more
Than for their fellow-sufferers engulfed
Where every parting agony is hushed,
And hope and fear mix not in further strife.
“But courage, Father! let us out to sea—
A few may yet be saved.” The Daughter’s words,
Her earnest tone, and look beaming with faith,
Dispel the Father’s doubts: nor do they lack
The noble-minded Mother’s helping hand
To launch the boat; and with her blessing cheered,
And inwardly sustained by silent prayer,
Together they put forth, Father and Child!
Each grasps an oar, and struggling on they go—
Rivals in effort; and, alike intent
Here to elude and there surmount, they watch
The billows lengthening, mutually crossed
And shattered, and re-gathering their might;
As if the tumult, by the Almighty’s will
Were, in the conscious sea, roused and prolonged
That woman’s fortitude— so tried, so proved—
May brighten more and more!
True to the mark,
They stem the current of that perilous gorge,
Their arms still strengthening with the strengthening heart,
Though danger, as the Wreck is neared, becomes
More imminent. Not unseen do they approach;
And rapture, with varieties of fear
Incessantly conflicting, thrills the frames
Of those who, in that dauntless energy,
Foretaste deliverance; but the least perturbed
Can scarcely trust his eyes, when he perceives
That of the pair— tossed on the waves to bring
Hope to the hopeless, to the dying, life—
One is a Woman, a poor earthly sister,
Or, be the Visitant other than she seems,
A guardian Spirit sent from pitying Heaven,
In woman’s shape. But why prolong the tale,
Casting weak words amid a host of thoughts
Armed to repel them? Every hazard faced
And difficulty mastered, with resolve
That no one breathing should be left to perish,
This last remainder of the crew are all
Placed in the little boat, then o’er the deep
Are safely borne, landed upon the beach,
And, in fulfilment of God’s mercy, lodged
Within the sheltering Lighthouse.—Shout, ye Waves
Send forth a song of triumph. Waves and Winds,
Exult in this deliverance wrought through faith
In Him whose Providence your rage hath served!
Ye screaming Sea-mews, in the concert join!
And would that some immortal Voice—a Voice
Fitly attuned to all that gratitude
Breathes out from floor or couch, through pallid lips
Of the survivors—to the clouds might bear—
Blended with praise of that parental love,
Beneath whose watchful eye the Maiden grew
Pious and pure, modest and yet so brave,
Though young so wise, though meek so resolute—
Might carry to the clouds and to the stars,
Yea, to celestial Choirs, GRACE DARLING’S name!
William Wordsworth
(1770–1850)
The Master, the Swabber, the Boat-swain and I;
The Gunner, and his Mate,
Lov’d Mall, Meg and Marian, and Margery,
But none of us car’d for Kate,
For she had a tongue with a tang,
Would cry to a Sailour go hang:
She lov’d not the savour of Tar nor of Pitch,
Yet a Taylor might scratch her where ere she did itch.
Then to Sea Boys, and let her go hang.
William Shakespeare
(1564–1616)
In a breaker’s yard by the Millwall Docks,
With its piled-up litter of sheaveless blocks,
Stranded hawsers and links of cable,
A cabin lamp and a chartroom table,
Nail-sick timbers and heaps of metal
Rusty and red as an old tin kettle,
Scraps that were ships in the years gone by,
Fluke upon stock the anchors lie.
Every sort of a make of anchor
For trawler or tugboat, tramp or tanker,
Anchors little and anchors big
For every build and for every rig,
Old wooden-stocked ones fit for the Ark,
Stockless and squat ones, ugly and stark,
Anchors heavy and anchors small,
Mushroom and grapnel and kedge and all.
Mouldy old mudhooks, there they lie!
Have they ever a dream as the days go by
Of the tug of the tides on coasts afar,
A Northern light and a Southern star,
The mud and sand of a score of seas,
And the chuckling ebb of a hundred quays,
The harbour sights and the harbour smells,
The swarming junks and the temple bells?
Roar of the surf on coral beaches,
Rose-red sunsets on landlocked reaches,
Strange gay fishes in cool lagoons,
And palm-thatched cities in tropic noons;
Song of the pine and sigh of the palm,
River and roadstead, storm and calm—
Do they dream of them all now their work is done,
And the neaps and the springs at the last are one?
And only the tides of London flow,
Restless and ceaseless, to and fro;
Only the traffic’s rush and roar
Seems a breaking wave on a far-off shore,
And the wind that wanders the sheds among
The ghost of an old-time anchor song:—
“Bright plates and pannikins
To sail the seas around,
And a new donkey’s breakfast
For the outward bound!”
Cicely Fox Smith
(1882–1954)
Two sea-gulls carved of ivory
Stand by the early morning-sea.
One has a head, and one has none,
His clean white breast-feathers run
Up and over and do not stop,
There is no sign of that large drop
Of dark fire, round as sky,
That could be called a sea-gull’s eye.
Yet one who knows his sea-gulls knows
There is a head hid in the snows
Of the feathers on the back
Of the headless one, and black
Beads of life are sheathed there sound,
Ready to build a world around
The circle of a sea-gull’s head
At the lightest alien tread.
A sea-gull’s beak is made to slide
Between his wings in back and hide,
His head is made exactly right
To go between his wings for night.
Robert P. Tristram Coffin
(1892–1955)
In the grey wastes of dread,
The haunt of shattered gulls where nothing moves
But in a shroud of silence like the dead,
I heard a sudden harmony of hooves,
And, turning, saw afar
A hundred snowy horses unconfined,
The silver runaways of Neptune’s car
Racing, spray-curled, like waves before the wind.
Sons of the Mistral, fleet
As him with whose strong gusts they love to flee,
Who shod the flying thunders on their feet
And plumed them with the snortings of the sea;
Theirs is no earthly breed
Who only haunts the verges of the earth
And only on the sea’s salt herbage feed—
Surely the great white breakers gave them birth.
For when for years a slave,
A horse of the Camargue, in alien lands,
Should catch some far-off fragrance of the wave
Carried far inland from this native sands,
Many have told the tale
Of how in fury, foaming at the rein,
He hurls his rider; and with lifted tail,
With coal-red eyes and catarcating mane,
Heading his course for home,
Though sixty foreign leagues before him sweep,
Will never rest until he breathes the foam
And hears the native thunder of the deep.
And when the great gusts rise
And lash their anger on these arid coasts,
When the scared gulls career with mournful cries
And whirl across the waste like driven ghosts;
When hail and fire converge,
The only souls to which they strike no pain
Are the white-crested fillies of the surge
And the white horses of the windy plain.
Then in their strength and pride
The stallions of the wilderness rejoice;
They feel their Master’s trident in their side,
And high and shrill they answer to his voice.
With white tails smoking free,
Long streaming manes, and arching necks, they show
Their kinship to their sisters of the sea—
And forward hurl their thunderbolts of snow.
Still out of hardship bred,
Spirits of power and beauty and delight
Have ever on such frugal pasture fed
And loved to course with tempests through the night.
Roy Campbell
(1902–1957)
As I went down to Dymchurch Wall,
I heard the South sing o’er the land
I saw the yellow sunlight fall
On knolls where Norman churches stand.
And ringing shrilly, taut and lithe,
Within the wind a core of sound,
The wire from Romney town to Hythe
Along its airy journey wound.
A veil of purple vapour flowed
And trailed its fringe along the Straits;
The upper air like sapphire glowed:
And roses filled Heaven’s central gates.
Masts in the offing wagged their tops;
The swinging waves pealed on the shore;
The saffron beach, all diamond drops
And beads of surge, prolonged the roar.
As I came up from Dymchurch Wall,
I saw above the Downs’ low crest
The crimson brands of sunset fall,
Flicker and fade from out the West.
Night sank: like flakes of silver fire
The stars in one great shower came down;
Shrill blew the wind; and shrill the wire
Rang out from Hythe to Romney town.
The darkly shining salt sea drops
Streamed as the waves clashed on the shore;
The beach, with all its organ stops
Pealing again, prolonged the roar.
John Davidson
(1857–1909)
How lovely is the sound of oars at night
And unknown voices, borne through windless air,
From shadowy vessels floating out of sight
Beyond the harbour lantern’s broken glare
To those piled rocks that make on the dark wave
Only a darker stain. The splashing oars
Slide softly on as in an echoing cave
And with the whisper of the unseen shores
Mingle their music, till the bell of night
Murmurs reverberations low and deep
That droop towards the land in swooning flight
Like whispers from the lazy lips of sleep.
The oars grow faint. Below the cloud-dim hill
The shadows fade and now the bay is still.
Edward Shanks
(1892–1953)
I have seen the old ships sail like swans asleep
Beyond the village which men still call Tyre,
With leaden age o’ercargoed, dipping deep
For Famagusta and the hidden sun
That rings black Cyprus with a lake of fire;
And all those ships were certainly so old—
Who knows how oft with squat and noisy gun,
Questing brown slaves or Syrian oranges,
The pirate Genoese
Hell-raked them till they rolled
Blood, water, fruit and corpses up the hold.
But now through friendly seas they softly run,
Painted the mid-sea blue or shore-sea green,
Still patterned with the vine and grapes in gold.
But I have seen,
Pointing her shapely shadows from the dawn
And image tumbled on a rose-swept bay,
A drowsy ship of some yet older day;
And, wonder’s breath indrawn,
Thought I—who knows—who knows—but in that same
(Fished up beyond Aeaea, patched up new
—Stern painted brighter blue—)
That talkative, bald-headed pirate came
(Twelve patient comrades sweating at the oar)
From Troy’s doom-crimson shore,
And with great lies about his wooden horse
Set the crew laughing, and forgot his course.
It was so old a ship—who knows, who knows?
—And yet so beautiful, I watched in vain
To see the mast burst open with a rose,
And the whole deck put on its leaves again.
James Elroy Flecker
(1884–1915)
The blue lagoon rocks and quivers,
Dull gurgling eddies twist and spin,
The climate does for people’s livers,
It’s a nasty place to anchor in
Is Spanish port,
Fever port,
Port of Holy Peter.
The town begins on the sea-beaches,
And the town’s mad with stinging flies,
The drinking water’s mostly leeches,
It’s a far remove from Paradise
Is Spanish port,
Fever port,
Port of Holy Peter.
There’s sand-bagging and throat-slitting,
And quiet graves in the sea slime,
Stabbing, of course, and rum-hitting,
Dirt, and drink, and stink, and crime,
Is Spanish port,
Fever port,
Port of Holy Peter.
All the day the wind’s blowing
From the sick swamp below the hills,
All the night the plague’s growing,
And the dawn brings the fever chills
Is Spanish port,
Fever port,
Port of Holy Peter.
You get a thirst there’s no slaking,
You get the chills and fever-shakes,
Tongue yellow and head aching,
And then the sleep that never wakes.
And all the year the heat’s baking,
The sea rots and the earth quakes,
Is Spanish port,
Fever port,
Port of Holy Peter.
John Masefield
(1878–1967)
When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.
My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up,
Till it could come no more.
Robert Louis Stevenson
(1850–1894)
Drake he’s in his hammock an’ a thousand miles away,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An’ dreamin’ arl the time O’ Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi’ sailor lads a-dancing’ heel-an’-toe,
An’ the shore-lights flashin’, an’ the night-tide dashin’,
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.
Drake he was a Devon man, an’ ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha’ sleepin’ there below?)
Roving’ tho’ his death fell, he went wi’ heart at ease,
A’ dreamin’ arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
“Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven,
An’ drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.”
Drake he’s in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha sleepin’ there below?)
Slung atween the round shot, listenin’ for the drum,
An’ dreamin arl the time o’ Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade’s plyin’ an’ the old flag flyin’
They shall find him ware an’ wakin’, as they found
him long ago!
Sir Henry Newbolt
(1862–1938)
King Philip had vaunted his claims:
He had sworn for a year that he would sack us;
With an army of heathenish names
He was coming to fagot and stack us;
Like the thieves of the sea he would track us.
And shatter our ships on the main;
But we had bold Neptune to back us,—
And where are the galleons of Spain?
His carackes were christened of dames
To the kirtles whereof he would tack us;
With his saints and his gilded stern-frames,
He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us;
Now Howard may get to his Flaccus,
And Drake to his Devon again,
And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus,—
For where are the galleons of Spain?
Let his Majesty hang to St. James
The axe that he whetted to axe us;
He must play at some lustier games
Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us;
To his mines of Peru he would pack us
To tug at the bullet and chain;
Alas! that his Greatness would lack us!—
But where are the galleons of Spain?
Envoy
Gloriana! the don may attack us
Whenever his stomach may be fain;
He must reach us before he can rack us,—
And where are the galleons of Spain?
Austin Dobson
(1840–1921)
In eighteen hundred and forty-five,
Being March on the twentieth day,
Oh, we hoisted our colours to our topmost high
And for Greenland forged away, brave boys
And for Greenland forged away.
When we struck that Greenland shore
With our gallant ship in full fold,
We wished ourselves back safe home again
With our friends all on the shore, brave boys
With our friends all on the shore.
Our mate stood on the forecastle yard
With a spyglass in his hand,
“There’s a whale, there’s a whale, there’s a whale!” cried he,
“And she blows at every span, brave boys,
And she blows at every span.”
Oh, when this whale we did harpoon
She made one slap with her tail,
She capsized our boat, we lost five of our crew,
Neither did we catch that whale, brave boys
Neither did we catch that whale.
“Sad news, sad news,” to our captain we cried,
Which grieved his heart in full store,
But the losing of five of his jolly, jolly crew,
Oh, it grieved him ten times more, brave boys,
Oh, that grieved him ten times more.
“Hist your anchors then, brave boys,” said he.
“Let us leave this cold countery
Where the storm and the snow and the whalefish does blow,
And daylight’s seldom seen, brave boys,
And daylight’s seldom seen.”
Anon.
And then I pressed the shell
Close to my ear,
And listened well.
And straightway, like a bell,
Came low and clear
The slow, sad, murmur of far distant seas.
Whipped by an icy breeze
Upon a shore
Wind-swept and desolate.
It was a sunless strand that never bore
The footprints of a man,
Nor felt the weight
Since time began
Of any human quality or stir,
Save what the dreary winds and wave incur.
And in the hush of waters was the sound
Of pebbles, rolling round;
For ever rolling, with a hollow sound:
And, bubbling sea-weeds, as the waters go, Swish to and fro
Their long cold tentacles of slimy grey:
There was no day;
Nor ever came a night
Setting the stars alight
To wonder at the moon:
Was twilight only, and the frightened croon,
Smitten to whimpers, of the dreary wind
And waves that journeyed blind ...
And then I loosed my ear —Oh, it was sweet
To hear a cart go jolting down the street.
James Stephens
(1882–1950)
Blasted and bored and undermined
By quarrying seas
Reared the erect chalk-cliff with black flints lined.
(Flints drop like nuts from trees
When the frost bites
The chalk on winter nights.)
Save for frail shade of jackdaw’s flight
No night was there,
But blue-skyed summer and a cliff so white
It stood like frozen air;
Foot slipped on damp
Chalk where the limpets camp.
With only purple of sea-stock
And jackdaw’s shade
To mitigate that blazing height of chalk
I stood like a soul strayed
In paradise
Hiding my blinded eyes.
Andrew Young
(1885–1971)
The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Matthew Arnold
(1822–1888)
Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field
in flower.
Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the starbright air
Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.
Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke
in the dark?
Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds
that bark.
Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,
Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten
and die.
Heaven’s own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and
semblance in fire:
Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night’s desire.
And the night was alive and an-hungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:
And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.
All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:
And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things
distraught.
And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:
And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart
of Ind.
Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,
Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death
for priest.
The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free
Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a
tropic sea.
As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,
The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer
cliff’s wall.
Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,
And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.
Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,
Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird’s heart in a boy.
For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime
As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.
The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,
The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,
In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,
And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven
breathed free.
Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light
From the rims of the storm to the sea’s dark edge with flames that were
flowerlike and white.
The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as
they fade
From the cloud’s black base to the black wave’s brim rejoiced in the light
they made.
Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,
Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of
the moon.
The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may
behold, and deep
As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul
through sleep.
All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know
Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.
The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea’s labour
and rage,
Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.
No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the
night made bare,
Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air—
Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and
the sea’s,
Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men’s knees.
No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams
Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath’s
length seems—
One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love
that subsides
As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released
the tides.
In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed
and withheld
As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.
As the glories of myriads of glow-worms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn
Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.
A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,
And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be;
As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep,
Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:
Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake:
Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live
storm’s wake,
In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring
hour,
A harvest of stars by the storm’s hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.
And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed
When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream
half dreamed.
The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,
Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;
With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power
As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new
God’s birth,
The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell:
And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and
of hell.
The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were well-nigh fain,
For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease
from her pain.
And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife;
And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the passage of life.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1837–1909)
I
At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying from far away:
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted”
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ’Fore God I am no coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?”
II
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I’ve ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.”
So Lord Howard passed away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
IV
He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
“Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!
There’ll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.’
And Sir Richard said again: “We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.”
Sir Richard spoke and he laugh’d, and we roar’d a hurrah, and so
The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little Revenge ran on thro’ the long sea-lane between.
VI
Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and laugh’d,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay’d
By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay’d.
VII
And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.
But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went
Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.
IX
And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,
But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.
For some were sunk and many were shatter’d, and so could fight us no more—
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
X
For he said “Fight on! fight on!”
Tho’ his vessel was all but a wreck;
And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone,
With a grisly wound to be dressed he had left the deck,
But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,
And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,
And he said “Fight on! fight on!”
And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,
And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;
But they dared not touch us again, for they fear’d that we still could sting,
So they watched what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maim’d for life
In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,
And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent;
And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;
But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,
“We have fought such a fight for a day and a night
As may never be fought again!
We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more
At sea or ashore,
We die—does it matter when?
Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!
Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!”
And the gunner said “Ay, ay”, but the seamen made reply:
“We have children, we have wives,
And the Lord hath spared our lives.
We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;
We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow.”
And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.
XIII
And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,
Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,
And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;
But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:
“I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;
I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do:
With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!”
And he fell upon their decks, and he died.
And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,
And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap
That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;
Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,
But they sank his body with honour down into the deep,
And they mann’d the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,
And away she sail’d with her loss and long’d for her own;
When a wind from the lands they had ruin’d awoke from sleep,
And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,
And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,
And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,
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 crags
To be lost evermore in the main.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
(1809–1892)
The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud though childlike form.
The flames roll’d on—he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.
He call’d aloud, “Say, father, say
If yet my task is done?”
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.
“Speak, father!” once again he cried
“If I may yet be gone!”
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair;
And looked from that lone post of death,
In still, yet brave despair;
And shouted but once more aloud,
“My father! must I stay?”
While o’er him fast, through sail and shroud
The wreathing fires made way,
They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And stream’d above the gallant child
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound—
The boy—oh! where was he?
—Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strew the sea;
With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part—
But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young, faithful heart.
Felicia Dorothea Hemans
(1793–1835)
(The Royal Regiment of Marines)
As I was spittin’ into the Ditch aboard o’ the Crocodile,
I seed a man on a man—o’—war got up in the Reg’lars’ style.
’E was scrapin’ the paint from off of ‘er plates, an’ I sez to ‘im, “’Oo are you?”
Sez ’e, “I’m a Jolly—‘Er Majesty’s Jolly —soldier an’ sailor too!”
Now ’is work begins by Gawd knows when, and ’is work is never through;
’E isn’t one o’ the reg’lar Line, nor ‘e isn’t one of the crew.
’E’s a kind of a giddy harumfrodite—soldier an’ sailor too!
An’ after I met ’im all over the world, a-doin’ all kinds of things,
Like landin’ ’isself with a Gatlin’ gun to talk to them ’eathen kings;
’E sleeps in an ’ammick instead of a cot, an’ ’e drills with the deck on a slew,
An’ ’e sweats like a Jolly—‘Er Majesty’s Jolly—soldier an’ sailor too!
For there isn’t a job on the top o’ the earth the beggar don’t know, nor do—
You can leave ’im at night on a bald man’s ’ead, to paddle ’is own canoe—
’E’s a sort of a bloomin’ cosmopolouse—soldier an’ sailor too.
We’ve fought ’em in trooper, we’ve fought ’em in dock, and drunk with
’em in betweens,
When they called us the seasick scull’ry-maids, an’ we called ’em the
Ass Marines;
But, when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo,
We sent for the Jollies —’Er Majesty’s Jollies —soldier an’ sailor too!
They think for ’emselves, an’ they steal for ’emselves, and they never ask
what’s to do,
But they’re camped an’ fed an’ they’re up an’ fed before our bugle’s blew.
Ho! they ain’t no limpin’ procrastitutes—soldier an’ sailor too.
You may say we are fond of an ’arness-cut, or ’ootin’ in barrick-yards,
Or startin’ a Board School mutiny along o’ the Onion Guards;
But once in a while we can finish in style for the ends of the earth to view,
The same as the Jollies—’Er Majesty’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
They come of our lot, they was brothers to us; they was beggars we’d met
an’ knew;
Yes, barrin’ an inch in the chest an’ the arm, they was doubles o’ me an’ you;
For they weren’t no special chrysanthemums—soldier an’ sailor too!
To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ’and, an’ leave an’ likin’ to shout;
But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
An’ they done it, the Jollies—’Er Majesty’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
Their work was done when it ’adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an’ you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ’eaps an’ bein’ mopped by
the screw,
So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill, soldier an’ sailor too!
We’re most of us liars, we’re ’arf of us thieves, an’ the rest are as rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I ’ope it won’t ’appen to me).
But it makes you think better o’ you an’ your friends, an’ the work you may
’ave to do,
When you think o’ the sinkin’ Victorier’s Jollies—soldier an’ sailor too!
Now there isn’t no room for to say ye don’t know— they ‘ave proved it plain
and true—
That whether it’s Widow, or whether it’s ship, Victorier’s work is to do,
An’ they done it, the Jollies—‘Er Majesty’s Jollies —soldier an’ sailor too!
Rudyard Kipling
(1865—1936)
They will take us from the moorings, they will take us from the Bay,
They will pluck us up to windward when we sail.
We shall hear the keen wind whistle, we shall feel the sting of spray,
When we’ve dropped the deep-sea pilot o’er the rail.
Then it’s Johnnie heave an’ start her, then it’s Johnnie roll and go;
When the mates have picked the watches, there is little rest for Jack.
But we’ll raise the good old chanty that the Homeward bounders know,
For the girls have got the tow-rope, an’ they’re hauling in the slack
In the dusty streets and dismal, through the noises of the town,
We can hear the West wind humming through the shrouds;
We can see the lightning leaping when the tropic suns go down,
And the dapple of the shadows of the clouds.
And the salt blood dances in us, to the tune of Homeward Bound,
To the call to weary watches, to the sheet and to the tack.
When they bid us man the capstan how the hands will walk her round!—
For the girls have got the tow-rope, an’ they’re hauling in the slack.
Through the sunshine of the tropics, round the bleak and dreary Horn,
Half across the little planet lies our way.
We shall leave the land behind us like a welcome that’s outworn
When we see the reeling mastheads swing and sway.
Through the weather fair or stormy, in the calm and in the gale,
We shall heave and haul to help her, we shall hold her on her track,
And you’ll hear the chorus rolling when the hands are making sail,
For the girls have got the tow-rope, an’ they’re hauling in the slack!
D.H. Rogers
(unknown)
