Poems & Ballads Volume III Part 3

The storm that shrieks, the wind that wages War with the wings of hopes that climb Too high toward heaven in doubt sublime, a.s.sail not thee, approved of ages The towering crown of time.

XLIX

Toward thee this year thy children turning With souls uplift of changeless cheer Salute with love that casts out fear, With hearts for beacons round thee burning, The token of this year.

L

With just and sacred jubilation Let earth sound answer to the sea For witness, blown on winds as free, How England, how her crowning nation, Acclaims this jubilee.

THE ARMADA

1588: 1888

I

I

England, mother born of seamen, daughter fostered of the sea, Mother more beloved than all who bear not all their children free, Reared and nursed and crowned and cherished by the sea-wind and the sun, Sweetest land and strongest, face most fair and mightiest heart in one, Stands not higher than when the centuries known of earth were less by three, When the strength that struck the whole world pale fell back from hers undone.

II

At her feet were the heads of her foes bowed down, and the strengths of the storm of them stayed, And the hearts that were touched not with mercy with terror were touched and amazed and affrayed: Yea, hearts that had never been molten with pity were molten with fear as with flame, And the priests of the G.o.dhead whose temple is h.e.l.l, and his heart is of iron and fire, And the swordsmen that served and the seamen that sped them, whom peril could tame not or tire, Were as foam on the winds of the waters of England which tempest can tire not or tame.

III

They were girded about with thunder, and lightning came forth of the rage of their strength, And the measure that measures the wings of the storm was the breadth of their force and the length: And the name of their might was Invincible, covered and clothed with the terror of G.o.d; With his wrath were they winged, with his love were they fired, with the speed of his winds were they shod; With his soul were they filled, in his trust were they comforted: grace was upon them as night, And faith as the blackness of darkness: the fume of their balefires was fair in his sight, The reek of them sweet as a savour of myrrh in his nostrils: the world that he made, Theirs was it by gift of his servants: the wind, if they spake in his name, was afraid, And the sun was a shadow before it, the stars were astonished with fear of it: fire Went up to them, fed with men living, and lit of men's hands for a shrine or a pyre; And the east and the west wind scattered their ashes abroad, that his name should be blest Of the tribes of the chosen whose blessings are curses from uttermost east unto west.

II

I

h.e.l.l for Spain, and heaven for England,--G.o.d to G.o.d, and man to man,-- Met confronted, light with darkness, life with death: since time began, Never earth nor sea beheld so great a stake before them set, Save when Athens hurled back Asia from the lists wherein they met; Never since the sands of ages through the gla.s.s of history ran Saw the sun in heaven a lordlier day than this that lights us yet.

II

For the light that abides upon England, the glory that rests on her G.o.dlike name, The pride that is love and the love that is faith, a perfume dissolved in flame, Took fire from the dawn of the fierce July when fleets were scattered as foam And squadrons as flakes of spray; when galleon and gallia.s.s that shadowed the sea Were swept from her waves like shadows that pa.s.s with the clouds they fell from, and she Laughed loud to the wind as it gave to her keeping the glories of Spain and Rome.

III

Three hundred summers have fallen as leaves by the storms in their season thinned, Since northward the war-ships of Spain came sheer up the way of the south-west wind: Where the citadel cliffs of England are flanked with bastions of serpentine, Far off to the windward loomed their hulls, an hundred and twenty-nine, All filled full of the war, full-fraught with battle and charged with bale; Then store-ships weighted with cannon; and all were an hundred and fifty sail.

The measureless menace of darkness anhungered with hope to prevail upon light, The shadow of death made substance, the present and visible spirit of night, Came, shaped as a waxing or waning moon that rose with the fall of day, To the channel where couches the Lion in guard of the gate of the l.u.s.trous bay.

Fair England, sweet as the sea that shields her, and pure as the sea from stain, Smiled, hearing hardly for scorn that stirred her the menace of saintly Spain.

III

I

"They that ride over ocean wide with hempen bridle and horse of tree,"

How shall they in the darkening day of wrath and anguish and fear go free?

How shall these that have curbed the seas not feel his bridle who made the sea?

G.o.d shall bow them and break them now: for what is man in the Lord G.o.d's sight?

Fear shall shake them, and shame shall break, and all the noon of their pride be night: These that sinned shall the ravening wind of doom bring under, and judgment smite.

England broke from her neck the yoke, and rent the fetter, and mocked the rod: Shrines of old that she decked with gold she turned to dust, to the dust she trod: What is she, that the wind and sea should fight beside her, and war with G.o.d?

Lo, the cloud of his ships that crowd her channel's inlet with storm sublime, Darker far than the tempests are that sweep the skies of her northmost clime; Huge and dense as the walls that fence the secret darkness of unknown time.

Mast on mast as a tower goes past, and sail by sail as a cloud's wing spread; Fleet by fleet, as the throngs whose feet keep time with death in his dance of dread; Galleons dark as the helmsman's bark of old that ferried to h.e.l.l the dead.

Squadrons proud as their lords, and loud with tramp of soldiers and chant of priests; Slaves there told by the thousandfold, made fast in bondage as herded beasts; Lords and slaves that the sweet free waves shall feed on, satiate with funeral feasts.

Nay, not so shall it be, they know; their priests have said it; can priesthood lie?

G.o.d shall keep them, their G.o.d shall sleep not: peril and evil shall pa.s.s them by: Nay, for these are his children; seas and winds shall bid not his children die.

II

So they boast them, the monstrous host whose menace mocks at the dawn: and here They that wait at the wild sea's gate, and watch the darkness of doom draw near, How shall they in their evil day sustain the strength of their hearts for fear?

Full July in the fervent sky sets forth her twentieth of changing morns: Winds fall mild that of late waxed wild: no presage whispers or wails or warns: Far to west on the bland sea's breast a sailing crescent uprears her horns.

Seven wide miles the serene sea smiles between them stretching from rim to rim: Soft they shine, but a darker sign should bid not hope or belief wax dim: G.o.d's are these men, and not the sea's: their trust is set not on her but him.

G.o.d's? but who is the G.o.d whereto the prayers and incense of these men rise?

What is he, that the wind and sea should fear him, quelled by his sunbright eyes?

What, that men should return again, and hail him Lord of the servile skies?

h.e.l.l's own flame at his heavenly name leaps higher and laughs, and its gulfs rejoice: Plague and death from his baneful breath take life and lighten, and praise his choice: Chosen are they to devour for prey the tribes that hear not and fear his voice.

Ay, but we that the wind and sea gird round with shelter of storms and waves Know not him that ye worship, grim as dreams that quicken from dead men's graves: G.o.d is one with the sea, the sun, the land that nursed us, the love that saves.

Love whose heart is in ours, and part of all things n.o.ble and all things fair; Sweet and free as the circling sea, sublime and kind as the fostering air; Pure of shame as is England's name, whose crowns to come are as crowns that were.

IV

I

But the Lord of darkness, the G.o.d whose love is a flaming fire, The master whose mercy fulfils wide h.e.l.l till its torturers tire, He shall surely have heed of his servants who serve him for love, not hire.