Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.

For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more—

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

X.

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!'

XI.

60

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 fear'd that we

still could sting,

So they watch'd 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

70

was all of it spent ;

80

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,

We die-does it matter when?

Sink me the ship, Master Gunner-sink her, split her in

twain !

Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!' 90

XII.

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.

XIII.

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.

100

XIV.

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 honour 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 earth-
quake 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.

110

NOTES.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

INTRODUCTION.

THE Recollections first appeared in "Poems, chiefly Lyrical," published in 1830, the first volume of poetry to which Tennyson affixed his name. The poem has been noticed as one of the earliest that decisively announced the rise of a great poet. It is remarkable for opulent and powerful word-painting, combined with great imaginative luxuriance. The stanzas follow one another in a sort of processional pomp, as the reader's fancy travels through scene after scene of Oriental splendour. Full of curious wonder, he advances from one stage of magnificence to another, till at last he is borne triumphantly into the throned presence of the great Caliph himself.

NOTES.

1. when... infancy. In my happy childhood, when my young life was full of gay hopes and bold fancies.

3. the tide... time. My thoughts, instead of going forward to the future, travelled back to past events. Compare Milton, Nativity, xiv.

"For, if such holy song

Enwrap our fancy long,

Time will run back and fetch the age of gold.'

6. adown is the O. E. of dúne, off the hill; now generally shortened into down.

7. Bagdat, or Bagdad, on the eastern bank of the Tigris, was the capital of the empire of the Caliphs. It attained its greatest splendour, as the seat of elegance and learning, under Haroun Alraschid, who adorned it with many noble and stately edifices. fretted, formed into ornamental lace-work.

9. sworn. I was a sworn (i.e. devoted) Mussulman.

10. the golden prime, the vigorous and glorious period.

72

11. Haroun Alraschid, or Harun al-Rashid (i.e. Aaron the Orthodox), was the fifth of the Abbaside Caliphs of Bagdad, and ruled over territories extending from Egypt to Khorassan. He obtained great renown for his bravery, magnificence, and love of letters. He was a contemporary of Charlemagne, and flourished A.D. 786 to 809.

12. anight, on (the) night, at night. shallop, light boat; cf. sloop.

13. bloomed, covered with bloom; used as an adjective.

...

drove blue. Pushed the water before it, and cut across the shadows of the citron-trees on the surface of the blue stream. Clove (and cleft) is the preterite of cleave, to split; cleave, to adhere, makes its preterite cleaved.

16. brim, margin of the full river.

17. the costly... side. All three lines are instances of the nominative-absolute construction: "the doors being flung, etc., and sofas being on each side."

23. clear-stemm'd platans. The Oriental platan or platane (plane-tree) is a tree with spreading boughs (Lat. platanus, Gr. Tλarús, broad). It is called "clear-stemmed because its trunk runs smoothly up to some height without throwing out any branches.

24. the outlet, i.e. from the river into the canal. stood like sentinels on either bank.

The platans

26. sluiced. Led by a dike from the main river. Cf. Milton, P. L., i. 701, 702 :—

"Veins of liquid fire

Sluic'd from the lake."

Sluice is from Low Lat. exclusa, a flood-gate; lit. 'shut-off (water).'

28. was damask-work, was variegated with flowers. inlay is a noun, inlaid work.' The bank formed a mosaic-work of intertwined blossoms.

34. a motion... level. An impulse from the river's flow caused a ripple to run along the smooth surface of the canal.

37. night in night. A night caused by the deep shadows of the trees in the midst of the literal night.

39. vaults. In apposition with "another night." pillar'd, with trunks like pillars.

40. clomb, the old strong preterite of climb. The modern form is the weak climbed.

46. is rounded to, widens into.

51. seemed... prow. The motion on the surface of the water