Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. | Page 4

culverin, of double culverin,
Ordnance and arms, all furniture of war,

Victual, and last their fierceness and great spleen,
Willing to
founder, burn, split, wreck themselves,
But they would land, fight,
overcome, and reign.
Then would we count up England. Set by theirs,
Her fleet as walnut
shells. And a few pikes
Stored in the belfries, and a few brave men

For wielding them. But as the morning wore,
And we went ever
eastward, ever on,
Poured forth, poured down, a marching multitude

With stir about the towns; and waggons rolled
With offerings for
the army and the fleet.
Then to our hearts valour crept home again,

The loathèd name of Alva fanning it;
Alva who did convert from our
old faith
With many a black deed done for a white cause
(So spake
they erewhile to it dedicate)
Them whom not death could change, nor
fire, nor sword,
To thirst for his undoing.

Ay, as I am a Christian man, our thirst
Was comparable with Queen
Mary's. All
The talk was of confounding heretics,
The heretics the
Spaniards. Yet methought,
'O their great multitude! Not harbour room

On our long coast for that great multitude.
They land--for who can
let them--give us battle,
And after give us burial. Who but they,
For
he that liveth shall be flying north
To bear off wife and child. Our
very graves
Shall Spaniards dig, and in the daisied grass
Trample
them down.'
Ay, whoso will be brave,
Let him be brave beforehand. After th'
event
If by good pleasure of God it go as then
He shall be brave an'
liketh him. I say
Was no man but that deadly peril feared.
Nights riding two. Scant rest. Days riding three,
Then Foulkstone.
Need is none to tell all forth
The gathering stores and men, the
charter'd ship
That I, with two, my friends, got ready for sea.
Ready
she was, so many another, small
But nimble; and we sailing hugged
the shore,
Scarce venturing out, so Drake had willed, a league,
And
running westward aye as best we might,
When suddenly--behold
them!
On they rocked,
Majestical, slow, sailing with the wind.
O such a
sight! O such a sight, mine eyes,
Never shall you see more!
In crescent form,
A vasty crescent nigh two leagues across
From
horn to horn, the lesser ships within,
The great without, they did
bestride as 't were
And make a township on the narrow seas.
It was about the point of dawn: and light.
All grey the sea, and
ghostly grey the ships;
And after in the offing rocked our fleet,

Having lain quiet in the summer dark.
O then methought, 'Flash, blessed gold of dawn,
And touch the
topsails of our Admiral,
That he may after guide an emulous flock,


Old England's innocent white bleating lambs.
Let Spain within a
pike's length hear them bleat,
Delivering of their pretty talk in a
tongue
Whose meaning cries not for interpreter.'
And while I spoke, their topsails, friend and foe,
Glittered--and there
was noise of guns; pale smoke
Lagged after, curdling on the
sun-fleck'd main.
And after that? What after that, my soul?
Who
ever saw weakling white butterflies
Chasing of gallant swans, and
charging them,
And spitting at them long red streaks of flame?
We
saw the ships of England even so
As in my vaunting wish that
mocked itself
With 'Fool, O fool, to brag at the edge of loss.'
We
saw the ships of England even so
Run at the Spaniards on a wind, lay
to,
Bespatter them with hail of battle, then
Take their prerogative of
nimble steerage,
Fly off, and ere the enemy, heavy in hand,

Delivered his reply to the wasteful wave
That made its grave of foam,
race out of range,
Then tack and crowd all sail, and after them

Again.
So harassed they that mighty foe,
Moving in all its bravery to the east.

And some were fine with pictures of the saints,
Angels with flying
hair and peakèd wings,
And high red crosses wrought upon their sails;

From every mast brave flag or ensign flew,
And their long silken
pennons serpented
Loose to the morning. And the galley slaves,

Albeit their chains did clink, sang at the oar.
The sea was striped e'en like a tiger skin
With wide ship wakes.
And many cried, amazed,
'What means their patience?'
'Lo you,' others said,
'They pay with fear for their great costliness.

Some of their costliest needs must other guard;
Once guarded and in
port look to yourselves,
They count one hundred and fifty. It behoves

Better they suffer this long running fight--
Better for them than that
they give us battle,
And so delay the shelter of their roads.

'Two of their caravels we sank, and one
(Fouled with her consort in
the rigging) took
Ere she could catch the wind when she rode free.

And we have riddled many a sail, and split
Of spars a score or two.
What then? To-morrow
They look to straddle across the strait, and
hold
Having aye Calais for a shelter--hold
Our ships in fight.
To-morrow shall give account
For our to-day. They will not we pass
north
To meddle with Parma's flotilla; their hope
Being Parma, and
a convoy they would be
For his flat boats that bode invasion to us;

And if he reach to London--ruin, defeat.'
Three fleets the sun went down on, theirs