His path upward, and prevail'd,

Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands

To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

Such was he his work is done.
:

But while the races of mankind endure,
Let his great example stand

Colossal, seen of every land,

And keep the soldier firm, the statesman pure :

Till in all lands and thro' all human story

The path of duty be the way to glory :

And let the land whose hearths he saved from shame

For many and many an age proclaim

At civic revel and pomp and game,

And when the long-illumined cities flame,

Their ever-loyal iron leader's fame,

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With honour, honour, honour, honour to him.
Eternal honour to his name.

230

IX.

Peace, his triumph will be sung

By some yet unmoulded tongue

Far on in summers that we shall not see:

Peace, it is a day of pain

For one about whose patriarchal knee

Late the little children clung:

O peace, it is a day of pain

For one, upon whose hand and heart and brain

Once the weight and fate of Europe hung.

Ours the pain, be his the gain !

More than is of man's degree
Must be with us, watching here
At this, our great solemnity.
Whom we see not we revere ;
We revere, and we refrain

From talk of battles loud and vain,

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Setting toward eternity,

Uplifted high in heart and hope are we,
Until we doubt not that for one so true
There must be other nobler work to do
Than when he fought at Waterloo,
And Victor he must ever be.

For tho' the Giant Ages heave the hill
And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break, and work their will ;

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Tho' world on world in myriad myriads roll

Round us, each with different powers,

And other forms of life than ours,

On God and Godlike men we build our trust.

What know we greater than the soul?

Hush, the Dead March wails in the people's ears : The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears :

The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears;

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ;

He is gone who seem'd so great.—
Gone; but nothing can bereave him
Of the force he made his own
Being here, and we believe him
Something far advanced in State,

And that he wears a truer crown

Than any wreath that man can weave him.
Speak no more of his renown,

Lay your earthly fancies down,

And in the vast cathedral leave him.

God accept him, Christ receive him.

1852.

270

280

THE REVENGE.

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET.

I.

AT FLORES in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far

away:

'Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!' Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ''Fore God I am no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear, And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick. We e are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?'

II.

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: 'I know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.

But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore. 10 I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord

Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.'

III.

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day, Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bideford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below;

For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left

to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

IV.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. 'Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!

20

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.
And Sir Richard said again: 'We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil, 30
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.'

V.

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah,

and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, 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 thro' the long sea-lane between.

VI.

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks

and laugh'd,

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,

E

40

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers

of guns,

Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.

VII.

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.

VIII.

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 mus

queteers,

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

his ears

When he leaps from the water to the land.

50

IX.

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 battlethunder and flame;