Poems and Ballads (Third Series) | Page 8

the
Lord's high priest.
And lightly before the breeze?The ships of his foes take wing:?Are they scattered, the lords of the seas??Are they broken, the foes of the king??And ever now higher as a mounting fire the hopes of the Spaniard
spring.
And a windless night comes down:?And a breezeless morning, bright?With promise of praise to crown?The close of the crowning fight,?Leaps up as the foe's heart leaps, and glows with lustrous rapture
of light.
And stinted of gear for battle?The ships of the sea's folk lie,?Unwarlike, herded as cattle,?Six miles from the foeman's eye?That fastens as flame on the sight of them tame and offenceless,
and ranged as to die.
Surely the souls in them quail,?They are stricken and withered at heart,?When in on them, sail by sail,?Fierce marvels of monstrous art,?Tower darkening on tower till the sea-winds cower crowds down as to
hurl them apart.
And the windless weather is kindly,?And comforts the host in these;?And their hearts are uplift in them blindly,?And blindly they boast at ease?That the next day's fight shall exalt them, and smite with
destruction the lords of the seas.
II
And lightly the proud hearts prattle,?And lightly the dawn draws nigh,?The dawn of the doom of the battle?When these shall falter and fly;?No day more great in the roll of fate filled ever with fire the
sky.
To fightward they go as to feastward,?And the tempest of ships that drive?Sets eastward ever and eastward,?Till closer they strain and strive;?And the shots that rain on the hulls of Spain are as thunders afire
and alive.
And about them the blithe sea smiles?And flashes to windward and lee?Round capes and headlands and isles?That heed not if war there be;?Round Sark, round Wight, green jewels of light in the ring of the
golden sea.
But the men that within them abide?Are stout of spirit and stark?As rocks that repel the tide,?As day that repels the dark;?And the light bequeathed from their swords unsheathed shines lineal
on Wight and on Sark.
And eastward the storm sets ever,?The storm of the sails that strain?And follow and close and sever?And lose and return and gain;?And English thunder divides in sunder the holds of the ships of
Spain.
Southward to Calais, appalled?And astonished, the vast fleet veers;?And the skies are shrouded and palled,?But the moonless midnight hears?And sees how swift on them drive and drift strange flames that the
darkness fears.
They fly through the night from shoreward,?Heart-stricken till morning break,?And ever to scourge them forward?Drives down on them England's Drake,?And hurls them in as they hurtle and spin and stagger, with storm
to wake.
VI
I
And now is their time come on them. For eastward they drift and reel,?With the shallows of Flanders ahead, with destruction and havoc at heel,?With God for their comfort only, the God whom they serve; and here?Their Lord, of his great loving-kindness, may revel and make good cheer;?Though ever his lips wax thirstier with drinking, and hotter the
lusts in him swell;?For he feeds the thirst that consumes him with blood, and his
winepress fumes with the reek of hell.
II
Fierce noon beats hard on the battle; the galleons that loom to the lee?Bow down, heel over, uplifting their shelterless hulls from the sea:?From scuppers aspirt with blood, from guns dismounted and dumb, The signs of the doom they looked for, the loud mute witnesses come.?They press with sunset to seaward for comfort: and shall not they
find it there??O servants of God most high, shall his winds not pass you by, and
his waves not spare?
III
The wings of the south-west wind are widened; the breath of his
fervent lips,?More keen than a sword's edge, fiercer than fire, falls full on the
plunging ships.?The pilot is he of their northward flight, their stay and their
steersman he;?A helmsman clothed with the tempest, and girdled with strength to
constrain the sea.?And the host of them trembles and quails, caught fast in his hand
as a bird in the toils;?For the wrath and the joy that fulfil him are mightier than man's,
whom he slays and spoils.?And vainly, with heart divided in sunder, and labour of wavering
will,?The lord of their host takes counsel with hope if haply their star
shine still,?If haply some light be left them of chance to renew and redeem the
fray;?But the will of the black south-wester is lord of the councils of
war to-day.?One only spirit it quells not, a splendour undarkened of chance or
time;?Be the praise of his foes with Oquendo for ever, a name as a star
sublime.?But here what aid in a hero's heart, what help in his hand may be? For ever the dark wind whitens and blackens the hollows and heights
of the sea,?And galley by galley, divided and desolate, founders; and none
takes heed,?Nor foe nor friend, if they perish; forlorn, cast off in their
uttermost need,?They sink in the whelm of the waters, as pebbles by children from
shoreward hurled,?In the North Sea's waters that end not, nor know they a bourn but
the bourn of the world.?Past many a secure unavailable