Hurrah! hurrah! a single field hath turned the chance of war. Hurrah! hurrah! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre.

Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of day, We saw the army of the League drawn out in long array; With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers,

And Appenzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish spears.

There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our land; And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his

hand;

And, as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's empurpled flood,

And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of war, To fight for His own holy name, and Henry of Navarre.

The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor dressed; And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant crest. He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye;

He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern and high.

Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing to wing, Down all our line, a deafening shout: "God save our Lord the King!"

"And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he may, For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray,

Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the ranks

of war,

And be your oriflamme to-day the helmet of Navarre."

Hurrah! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din,
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring culverin.
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint André's plain,
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne.
Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of France,
Charge for the golden lilies,-upon them with the lance!
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears in rest,
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow-white
crest;

And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a guiding

star,

Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of Navarre.

Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath turned his rein;

D'Aumale hath cried for quarter; the Flemish count is slain. Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay gale; The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and cloven mail.

And then we thought on vengeance, and, all along our van, "Remember Saint Bartholomew!" was passed from man to

man.

But out spake gentle Henry, "No Frenchman is my foe: Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren go."

Oh! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in war,
As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of Navarre?

Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought for France to-day;

And many a lordly banner God gave them for a prey.

But we of the religion have borne us best in fight;

And the good Lord of Rosny hath ta'en the cornet white.
Our own true Maximilian the cornet white hath ta’en,
The cornet white with crosses black, the flag of false Lor-
raine.

Up with it high; unfurl it wide; that all the host may know
How God hath humbled the proud house which wrought His

Church such woe.

Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their loudest point of war,

Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of Navarre.

Ho! maidens of Vienna; ho! matrons of Lucerne;

Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never shall

return.

Ho! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles,

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor spearmen's souls.

Ho! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms be

bright;

Ho! burghers of St. Genevieve, keep watch and ward to

night;

For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised the slave,

And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valor of the brave.

Then glory to His holy name, from whom all glories are; And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of Navarre! Thomas Babington Macaulay [1800-1859]

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET [SEPTEMBER, 1591]

At Florés in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,

And a pinnace, like a fluttered 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 are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"

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. I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

So Lord Howard passed 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 blessed him in their pain, that they were not left

to Spain,

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

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight, And he sailed away from Florés 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!

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,
For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared 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 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 delayed

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 stayed.

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, 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!"

Though 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 dressed 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,