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 through the long sea-lane between.

Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and laughed,

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.

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 musque

teers,

And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his

ears

When he leaps from the water to the land.

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 shattered, and so could fight us no more

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

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 drest, 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 feared 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,

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.

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 honor down into the deep, And they manned 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.

COLUMBUS

Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind, the Gates of Hercules;

Before him not the ghost of shores;
Before him only shoreless seas.

The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For lo! the very stars are gone.

Brave Admiral, speak, what shall I say?"
"Why, say: 'Sail on! sail on! and on!""

"My men grow mutinous day by day;

My men grow ghastly, wan and weak." The stout mate thought of home; a spray

Of salt wave washed his swarthy cheek. "What shall I say, brave Admiral, say, If we sight naught but seas at dawn?" "Why, you shall say at break of day,

'Sail on! sail on! sail on! and on!""

They sailed and sailed, as winds might blow,
Until at last the blanched mate said:
"Why, now not even God would know
Should I and all my men fall dead.
These very winds forget their way,

For God from these dread seas is gone.
Now speak, brave Admiral, speak and say"
He said: "Sail on! sail on! and on!"

They sailed. They sailed. Then spake the mate: "This mad sea shows his teeth to-night.

He curls his lip, he lies in wait,

With lifted teeth, as if to bite!