Collected Poems Volume I Part 51

So when the dawn thro' rolling wreaths of cloud Struggled, and all the waves were molten gold, The heart of Spain exulted, for she saw The little fleet of England cloven in twain As if by some strange discord. A light breeze Blew from the ripening East; and, up against it, Urged by the very madness of defeat, Or so it seemed, one half the British fleet Drew nigh, towed by their boats, to challenge the vast Tempest-winged heaving citadels of Spain, At last to the murderous grapple; while far away Their other half, led by the flag of Drake, Stood out to sea, as if to escape the doom Of that sheer madness, for the light wind now Could lend them no such wings to hover and swoop As heretofore. Nearer the mad s.h.i.+ps came Towed by their boats, till now upon their right To windward loomed the Fleet Invincible With all its thunder-clouds, and on their left To leeward, gleamed the perilous white shoals With their long level lightnings under the cliffs Of England, from the green glad garden of Wight To the Owers and Selsea Bill. Right on they came, And suddenly the wrench of thundering cannon Shook the vast hulks that towered above them. Red Flamed the blue sea between. Thunder to thunder Answered, and still the s.h.i.+ps of Drake sped out To the open sea. Sidonia saw them go, Furrowing the deep that like a pale-blue s.h.i.+eld Lay diamond-dazzled now in the full light.

Rich was the omen of that day for Spain, The feast-day of Sidonia's patron-saint!

And the priests chanted and the trumpets blew Triumphantly! A universal shout Went skyward from the locust-swarming decks, A shout that rent the golden morning clouds From heaven to menacing heaven, as castle to castle Flew the great battle-signal, and like one range Of moving mountains, those almighty ranks Swept down upon the small forsaken s.h.i.+ps!

The lion's brood was in the imperial nets Of Spain at last. Onward the mountains came With all their golden clouds of sail and flags Like streaming cataracts; all their glorious chasms And glittering steeps, echoing, re-echoing, Calling, answering, as with the herald winds That blow the golden trumpets of the morning From Skiddaw to Helvellyn. In the midst The great _San Martin_ surged with heaven-wide press Of proudly billowing sail; and yet once more Slowly, solemnly, like another dawn Up to her mast-head soared in thunderous gold The sacred standard of their last crusade; While round a hundred prows that heaved thro' heaven Like granite cliffs, their black wet s.h.i.+ning flanks, And swept like moving promontories, rolled The splendid long-drawn thunders of the foam, And flashed the untamed white lightnings of the sea Back to a morn unhalyarded of man, Back to the unleashed sun and blazoned clouds And azure sky--the unfettered flag of G.o.d.

Like one huge moving coast-line on they came Cras.h.i.+ng, and closed the s.h.i.+ps of England round With one fierce crescent of thunder and sweeping flame, One crimson scythe of Death, whose long sweep drowned The eternal ocean with its mighty sound, From heaven to heaven, one roar, one glitter of doom, While out to the sea-line's blue remotest bound The s.h.i.+ps of Drake still fled, and the red fume Of battle thickened and shrouded shoal and sea with gloom.

The distant sea, the close white menacing shoals Are shrouded! And the lion's brood fight on!

And now death's very midnight round them rolls; Rent is the flag that late so proudly shone!

The red decks reel and their last hope seems gone!

Round them they still keep clear one ring of sea: It narrows; but the lion's brood fight on, Ungrappled still, still fearless and still free, While the white menacing shoals creep slowly out to lee.

Now through the red rents of each fire-cleft cloud, High o'er the British blood-greased decks flash out Thousands of swarthy faces, crowd on crowd Surging, with one tremendous hurricane shout _On, to the grapple_! and still the grim redoubt Of the oaken bulwarks rolls them back again, As buffeted waves that shatter in the furious bout When cannonading cliffs meet the full main And hurl it back in smoke--so Britain hurls back Spain;

Hurls her back, only to see her return, Darkening the heavens with billow on billow of sail: Round that huge storm the waves like lava burn, The daylight withers, and the sea-winds fail!

Seamen of England, what shall now avail Your naked arms? Before those blasts of doom The sun is quenched, the very sea-waves quail: High overhead their triumphing thousands loom, When hark! what low deep guns to windward suddenly boom?

What low deep strange new thunders far away Respond to the triumphant shout of Spain?

Is it the wind that shakes their giant array?

Is it the deep wrath of the rising main?

Is it--_El Draque_? El Draque! Ay, shout again, His thunders burst upon your windward flanks; The shoals creep out to leeward! Is it plain At last, what earthquake heaves your herded ranks Huddled in huge dismay tow'rds those white foam-swept banks?

Plain, it was plain at last, what cunning lured, What courage held them over the jaws o' the pit, Till Drake could hurl them down. The little s.h.i.+ps Of Howard and Frobisher, towed by their boats, Slipped away in the smoke, while out at sea Drake, with a gale of wind behind him, crashed Volley on volley into the helpless rear Of Spain and drove it down, huddling the whole Invincible Fleet together upon the verge Of doom. One awful surge of stormy wrath Heaved thro' the struggling citadels of Spain.

From East to West their desperate signal flew, And like a drove of bullocks, with the foam Flecking their giant sides, they staggered and swerved, Careening tow'rds the shallows as they turned, Then in one wild stampede of sheer dismay Rushed, tacking seaward, while the grey sea-plain Smoked round them, and the cannonades of Drake Raked their wild flight; and the crusading flag, Tangled in one black maze of cras.h.i.+ng spars, Whirled downward like the pride of Lucifer From heaven to h.e.l.l.

Out tow'rds the coasts of France They plunged, narrowly weathering the Ower banks; Then, once again, they formed in ranks compact, Roundels impregnable, wrathfully bent at last Never to swerve again from their huge path And solid end--to join with Parma's host, And hurl the whole of Europe on our isle.

Another day was gone, much powder spent; And, while Lord Howard exulted and conferred Knighthoods on his brave seamen, Drake alone Knew that his mighty plan, in spite of all, Had failed, knew that wellnigh his last great chance Was lost of wrecking the Spaniards ere they joined Parma. The night went by, and the next day, With scarce a visible scar the Invincible Fleet Drew onwards tow'rds its goal, unshakeable now In that grim battle-order. Beacons flared Along the British coast, and pikes flashed out All night, and a strange dread began to grip The heart of England, as it seemed the might Of seamen most renowned in all the world Checked not that huge advance. Yet at the heart Of Spain no less there clung a vampire fear And strange foreboding, as the next day pa.s.sed Quietly, and behind her all day long The shadowy s.h.i.+ps of Drake stood on her trail Quietly, patiently, as death or doom, Unswerving and implacable.

While the sun Sank thro' long crimson fringes on that eve.

The fleets were pa.s.sing Calais and the wind Blew fair behind them. A strange impulse seized Spain to shake off those bloodhounds from her trail, And suddenly the whole Invincible Fleet Anch.o.r.ed, in hope the following wind would bear The s.h.i.+ps of England past and carry them down To leeward. But their grim insistent watch Was ready; and though their van had wellnigh crashed Into the rear of Spain, in the golden dusk, They, too, a cannon-shot away, at once Anch.o.r.ed, to windward still.

Quietly heaved The golden sea in that tremendous hour Fraught with the fate of Europe and mankind, As yet once more the flag of council flew, And Hawkins, Howard, Frobisher, and Drake Gathered together upon the little _Revenge_ While like a triumphing fire the news was borne To Spain, already, that the Invincible Fleet Had reached its end, ay, and "that great black dog Sir Francis Drake" was writhing now in chains Beneath the torturer's hands.

High on his p.o.o.p He stood, a granite rock, above the throng Of captains, there amid the breaking waves Of clas.h.i.+ng thought and swift opinion, Silent, gazing where now the cool fresh wind Blew steadily up the terrible North Sea Which rolled under the clouds into a gloom Unfathomable. Once only his lips moved Half-consciously, breathing those mighty words, _The clouds His chariot_! Then, suddenly, he turned And looked upon the little flock of s.h.i.+ps That followed on the fleet of England, sloops Helpless in fight. These, manned by the brave zeal Of many a n.o.ble house, from hour to hour Had plunged out from the coast to join his flag.

"Better if they had brought us powder and food Than sought to join us thus," he had growled; but now "Lord G.o.d," he cried aloud, "they'll light our road To victory yet!" And in great sweeping strokes Once more he drew his mighty battle-plan Before the captains. In the thickening gloom They stared at his grim face as at a man Risen from h.e.l.l, with all the powers of h.e.l.l At his command, a face tempered like steel In the everlasting furnaces, a rock Of adamant, while with a voice that blent With the ebb and flow of the everlasting sea He spake, and at the low deep menacing words Monotonous with the unconquerable Pa.s.sion and level strength of his great soul They shuddered; for the man seemed more than man, And from his iron lips resounded doom As from the lips of cannon, doom to Spain, Inevitable, unconquerable doom.

And through that mighty host of Spain there crept Cold winds of fear, as to the darkening sky Once more from lips of kneeling thousands swept The vespers of an Empire--one vast cry, SALVE REGINA! G.o.d, what wild reply Hissed from the clouds in that dark hour of dreams?

AVE MARIA, _those about to die Salute thee_! See, what ghostly pageant streams Above them? What thin hands point down like pale moonbeams?

Thick as the ghosts that Dante saw in h.e.l.l Whirled on the blast thro' boundless leagues of pain, Thick, thick as wind-blown leaves innumerable, In the Inquisition's yellow robes her slain And tortured thousands, dense as the red rain That wellnigh quenched her fires, went hissing by With twisted shapes, raw from the racks of Spain, Salve Regina!--rus.h.i.+ng thro' the sky, And pale hands pointing down and lips that mocked her cry,

Ten thousand times ten thousand!--what are these That are arrayed in yellow robes and sweep Between your prayers and G.o.d like phantom seas Prophesying over your masts? Could Rome not keep The keys? Who loosed these dead to break your sleep?

SALVE REGINA, cry, yea, cry aloud.

AVE MARIA! Ye have sown: shall ye not reap?

SALVE REGINA! Christ, what fiery cloud Suddenly rolls to windward, high o'er mast and shroud?

Are h.e.l.l-gates burst at last? For the black deep To windward burns with streaming crimson fires!

Over the wild strange waves, they shudder and creep Nearer--strange smoke-wreathed masts and spars, red spires And blazing hulks, vast roaring blood-red pyres, Fierce as the flames ye fed with flesh of men Amid the imperial pomp and chanting choirs Of Alva--from El Draque's red hand again Sweep the wild fire-s.h.i.+ps down upon the Fleet of Spain.

Onward before the freshening wind they come Full fraught with all the terrors, all the bale That flamed so long for the delight of Rome, The shrieking fires that struck the sunlight pale, The avenging fires at last! Now what avail Your thousand ranks of cannon? Swift, cut free, Cut your scorched cables! Cry, reel backward, quail, Crash your huge huddled ranks together, flee!

Behind you roars the fire, before--the dark North Sea!

Dawn, everlasting and omnipotent Dawn rolled in crimson o'er the spar-strewn waves, As the last trumpet shall in thunder roll O'er heaven and earth and ocean. Far away, The s.h.i.+ps of Spain, great ragged piles of gloom And s.h.a.ggy splendour, leaning to the North Like sun-shot clouds confused, or rent apart In scattered squadrons, furiously plunged, Burying their mighty prows i' the broad grey rush Of smoking billowy hills, or heaving high Their giant bowsprits to the wandering heavens, Labouring in vain to return, struggling to lock Their far-flung ranks anew, but drifting still To leeward, driven by the ever-increasing storm Straight for the dark North Sea. Hard by there lurched One gorgeous galleon on the ravening shoals, Feeding the white maw of the famished waves With gold and purple webs from kingly looms And spilth of world-wide empires. Howard, still Planning to pluck the Armada plume by plume, Swooped down upon that prey and swiftly engaged Her desperate guns; while Drake, our ocean-king, Knowing the full worth of that doom-fraught hour, Glanced neither to the left nor right, but stood High on his p.o.o.p, with calm implacable face Gazing as into eternity, and steered The crowded glory of his dawn-flushed sails In superb onset, straight for the great fleet Invincible; and after him the main Of England's fleet, knowing its captain now, Followed, and with them rushed--from sky to sky One glittering charge of wrath--the storm's white waves, The twenty thousand foaming chariots Of G.o.d.

None but the everlasting voice Of him who fought at Salamis might sing The fight of that dread Sabbath. Not mankind Waged it alone. War raged in heaven that day, Where Michael and his angels drave once more The hosts of darkness ruining down the abyss Of chaos. Light against darkness, Liberty Against all dark old despotism, unsheathed The sword in that great hour. Behind the strife Of men embattled deeps beyond all thought Moved in their awful panoply, as move Silent, invisible, swift, under the clash Of waves and flash of foam, huge ocean-glooms And vast reserves of inappellable power.

The bowsprits ranked on either fore-front seemed But spear-heads of those dread antagonists Invisible: the shuddering sails of Spain Dusk with the shadow of death, the sunward sails Of England full-fraught with the breath of G.o.d.

Onward the s.h.i.+ps of England and G.o.d's waves Triumphantly charged, glittering companions, And poured their thunders on the extreme right Of Spain, whose giant galleons as they lurched Heavily to the roughening sea and wind With all their grinding, wrenching cannon, worked On rolling platforms by the helpless hands Of twenty thousand soldiers, without skill In stormy seas, rent the indifferent sky Or tore the black troughs of the swirling deep In vain, while volley on volley of flame and iron Burst thro' their four-foot beams, fierce raking blasts From s.h.i.+ps that came and went on wings of the wind All round their mangled bulk, scarce a pike's thrust Away, sweeping their decks from stem to stern (Between the rush and roar of the great green waves) With crimson death, rending their timbered towns And populous floating streets into wild squares Of slaughter and devastation; driving them down, Huddled on their own centre, cities of shame And havoc, in fiery forests of tangled wrath, With hurricanes of huge masts and swarming spars And mult.i.tudinous decks that heaved and sank Like earthquake-smitten palaces, when doom Comes, with one stride, across the pomp of kings.

All round them shouted the everlasting sea, Burst in white thunders on the streaming p.o.o.ps And blinded fifty thousand eyes with spray.

Once, as a gorgeous galleon, drenched with blood Began to founder and settle, a British captain Called from his bulwarks, bidding her fierce crew Surrender and come aboard. Straight through the heart A hundred muskets answered that appeal.

_Sink or destroy_! The deadly signal flew From mast to mast of England. Once, twice, thrice, A huge sea-castle heaved her haggled bulk Heavenward, and with a cry that rent the heavens From all her crowded decks, and one deep roar As of a cloven world or the dark surge Of chaos yawning, sank: the swirling slopes Of the sweeping billowy hills for a moment swarmed With struggling insect-men, sprinkling the foam With tossing arms; then the indifferent sea Rolled its grey smoking waves across the place Where they had been. Here a great gallea.s.se poured Red rivers through her scuppers and torn flanks, And there a galleon, wrapped in creeping fire, Suddenly like a vast volcano split Asunder, and o'er the vomiting sulphurous clouds And spouting spread of crimson, flying spars And heads torn from their trunks and scattered limbs Leapt, hideous gouts of death, against the glare.

Hardly the thrust of a pike away, the s.h.i.+ps Of England flashed and swerved, till in one ma.s.s Of thunder-blasted splendour and shuddering gloom Those gorgeous floating citadels huddled and shrank Their towers, and all the glory of dawn that rolled And burned along the tempest of their banners Withered, as on a murderer's face the light Withers before the accuser. All their proud Castles and towers and heaven-wide clouds of sail Shrank to a darkening horror, like the heart Of Evil, plucked from midnight's fiercest gloom, With all its curses quivering and alive; A horror of wild masts and tangled spars, Like some great kraken with a thousand arms Torn from the filthiest cavern of the deep, Writhing, and spewing forth its venomous fumes On every side. _Sink or destroy_!--all day The deadly signal flew; and ever the sea Swelled higher, and the flashes of the foam Broadened and leapt and spread as a wild white fire That flourishes with the wind; and ever the storm Drave the grim battle onward to the wild Menace of the dark North Sea. At set of sun, Even as below the sea-line the broad disc Sank like a red-hot cannon-ball through scurf Of seething molten lead, the _Santa Maria_ Uttering one cry that split the heart of heaven Went down with all hands, roaring into the dark.

Hardly five rounds of shot were left to Drake!

Gun after gun fell silent, as the night Deepened--"Yet we must follow them to the North,"

He cried, "or they'll return yet to shake hands With Parma! Come, we'll put a brag upon it, And hunt them onward as we lacked for nought!"

So, when across the swinging smoking seas, Grey and splendid and terrible broke the day Once more, the flying Invincible fleet beheld Upon their weather-beam, and d.o.g.g.i.ng them Like their own shadow, the dark s.h.i.+ps of Drake, Unswerving and implacable. Ever the wind And sea increased; till now the heaving deep Swelled all around them into sulky hills And rolling mountains, whose majestic crests, Like wild white flames far blown and savagely flickering Swept thro' the clouds; and, on their vanis.h.i.+ng slopes, Past the pursuing fleet began to swirl Scores of horses and mules, drowning or drowned, Cast overboard to lighten the wild flight Of Spain, and save her water-casks, a trail Telling of utmost fear. And ever the storm Soared louder across the leagues of rioting sea, Driving her onward like a mighty stag Chased by the wolves. Off the dark Firth of Forth At last, Drake signalled and lay head to wind, Watching. "The chariots of G.o.d are twenty thousand,"

He muttered, as, for a moment close at hand, Caught in some league-wide whirlpool of the sea, The mighty galleons crowded and towered and plunged Above him on the huge o'erhanging billows, As if to crash down on his decks; the next, A mile of ravening sea had swept between Each of those wind-whipt straws and they were gone, With all their tiny shrivelling scrolls of sail, Through roaring deserts of embattled death, Where like a hundred thousand chariots charged With lightnings and with thunders, the great deep Hurled them away to the North. From sky to sky One blanching bursting storm of infinite seas Followed them, broad white cataracts, hills that grasped With struggling t.i.tan hands at reeling heavens, And roared their doom-fraught greetings from Cape Wrath Round to the b.l.o.o.d.y Foreland.

There should the yeast Of foam receive the purple of many kings, And the grim gulfs devour the blood-bought gold Of Aztecs and of Incas, and the reefs, League after league, bristle with mangled spars, And all along their coasts the murderous kerns Of Catholic Ireland strip the gorgeous silks And chains and jewel-encrusted crucifixes From thousands dead, and slaughter thousands more With gallow-gla.s.s axes as they blindly crept Forth from the surf and jagged rocks to seek Pity of their own creed.

To meet that doom Drake watched their sails go shrivelling, till the last Flicker of spars vanished as a skeleton leaf Upon the blasts of winter, and there was nought But one wide wilderness of splendour and gloom Under the northern clouds.

"Not unto us,"

Cried Drake, "not unto us--but unto Him Who made the sea, belongs our England now!

Pray G.o.d that heart and mind and soul we prove Worthy among the nations of this hour And this great victory, whose ocean fame Shall wash the world with thunder till that day When there is no more sea, and the strong cliffs Pa.s.s like a smoke, and the last peal of it Sounds thro' the trumpet."

So, with close-hauled sails, Over the rolling triumph of the deep, Lifting their hearts to heaven, they turned back home.

END OF VOLUME ONE.