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,

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!"

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.

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 mann'd 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.

TO VIRGIL

Written at the request of the Mantuans for the nineteenth centenary of Virgil's death

I

Roman Virgil, thou that singest

Ilion's lofty temples robed in fire,

Ilion falling, Rome arising,

wars, and filial faith, and Dido's pyre;

II

Landscape-lover, lord of language

more than he that sang the Works and Days,

All the chosen coin of fancy

flashing out from many a golden phrase;

III

Thou that singest wheat and woodland,

tilth and vineyard, hive and horse and herd;

All the charm of all the Muses

often flowering in a lonely word;

Poet of the happy Tityrus

IV

piping underneath his beechen bowers;

Poet of the poet-satyr

whom the laughing shepherd bound with flowers;

V

Chanter of the Pollio, glorying

in the blissful years again to be, Summers of the snakeless meadow, unlaborious earth and oarless sea;

VI

Thou that seest Universal

Nature moved by Universal Mind;

Thou majestic in thy sadness

at the doubtful doom of human kind;

VII

Light among the vanish'd ages;

star that gildest yet this phantom shore;

Golden branch amid the shadows,

kings and realms that pass to rise no more;

VIII

Now thy Forum roars no longer,

fallen every purple Cæsar's dome—

Tho' thine ocean-roll of rhythm

sound for ever of Imperial Rome—

IX

Now the Rome of slaves hath perish'd,

and the Rome of freemen holds her place,

I, from out the Northern Island

sunder'd once from all the human race,

X

I salute thee, Mantovano,

I that loved thee since my day began,

Wielder of the stateliest measure

ever moulded by the lips of man.

HYMN

[From Akbar's Dream]

I

Once again thou flamest heavenward, once again we see thee rise. Every morning is thy birthday gladdening human hearts and eyes. Every morning here we greet it, bowing lowly down before thee,

Thee the Godlike, thee the changeless, in thine ever-changing skies.

II

Shadow-maker, shadow-slayer, arrowing light from clime to clime, Hear thy myriad laureates hail thee monarch in their woodland rhyme.

Warble bird, and open flower, and, men, below the dome of

azure

Kneel adoring Him the Timeless in the flame that measures Time!

GOD AND THE UNIVERSE

I

Will my tiny spark of being wholly vanish in your deeps and heights?

Must my day be dark by reason, O ye Heavens, of your boundless nights,

Rush of Suns, and roll of systems, and your fiery clash of meteorites?

II

"Spirit, nearing yon dark portal at the limit of thy human state, Fear not thou the hidden purpose of that Power which alone is

great,

Nor the myriad world, His shadow, nor the silent Opener of the Gate."

CROSSING THE BAR

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell,

When I embark;

For tho' from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.