Poems and Ballads (Third Series) | Page 8

of women and children and
men that
burn.
For the mother shall burn with the babe sprung forth of her womb in
fire,
And bride with bridegroom, and brother with sister, and son with
sire;
And the noise of the flames shall be sweet in thine ears as the
sound of a lyre.
Yea, so shall thy kingdom be stablished, and so shall the signs of
it be:
And the world shall know, and the wind shall speak, and the
sun
shall see,
That these are the works of thy servants, whose works bear
witness
to thee.
II
But the dusk of the day falls fruitless, whose light should have
lit them on:
Sails flash through the gloom to shoreward, eclipsed as
the sun
that shone:
And the west wind wakes with dawn, and the hope that
was here is
gone.
Around they wheel and around, two knots to the Spaniard's one, The
wind-swift warriors of England, who shoot as with shafts of the

sun,
With fourfold shots for the Spaniard's, that spare not till day be
done.
And the wind with the sundown sharpens, and hurtles the ships to
the lee,
And Spaniard on Spaniard smites, and shatters, and yields;
and we, Ere battle begin, stand lords of the battle, acclaimed of the sea.
And the day sweeps round to the nightward; and heavy and hard the
waves
Roll in on the herd of the hurtling galleons; and masters and
slaves
Reel blind in the grasp of the dark strong wind that shall dig
their graves.
For the sepulchres hollowed and shaped of the wind in the swerve of
the seas,
The graves that gape for their pasture, and laugh, thrilled
through
by the breeze,
The sweet soft merciless waters, await and are fain of
these.
As the hiss of a Python heaving in menace of doom to be They hear
through the clear night round them, whose hours are as
clouds that flee,
The whisper of tempest sleeping, the heave and the
hiss of the sea.
But faith is theirs, and with faith are they girded and helmed and
shod:
Invincible are they, almighty, elect for a sword and a rod;
Invincible even as their God is omnipotent, infinite, God.
In him is their strength, who have sworn that his glory shall wax

not dim:
In his name are their war-ships hallowed as mightiest of all
that
swim:
The men that shall cope with these, and conquer, shall cast out
him.
In him is the trust of their hearts; the desire of their eyes is
he;
The light of their ways, made lightning for men that would fain be
free:
Earth's hosts are with them, and with them is heaven: but with
us
is the sea.
V
I
And a day and a night pass over;
And the heart of their chief swells
high;
For England, the warrior, the rover,
Whose banners on all
winds fly,
Soul-stricken, he saith, by the shadow of death, holds off
him, and
draws not nigh.
And the wind and the dawn together
Make in from the gleaming east:

And fain of the wild glad weather
As famine is fain of feast,
And
fain of the fight, forth sweeps in its might the host of 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