Poems & Ballads Volume III Part 4

They shall fetter the wing of the wind whose pinions are plumed with foam: For now shall thy horn be exalted, and now shall thy bolt strike home; Yea, now shall thy kingdom come, Lord G.o.d of the priests of Rome.

They shall cast thy curb on the waters, and bridle the waves of the sea: They shall say to her, Peace, be still: and stillness and peace shall be: And the winds and the storms shall hear them, and tremble, and worship thee.

Thy breath shall darken the morning, and wither the mounting sun; And the daysprings, frozen and fettered, shall know thee, and cease to run; The heart of the world shall feel thee, and die, and thy will be done.

The spirit of man that would sound thee, and search out causes of things, Shall shrink and subside and praise thee: and wisdom, with plume-plucked wings, Shall cower at thy feet and confess thee, that none may fathom thy springs.

The fountains of song that await but the wind of an April to be To burst the bonds of the winter, and speak with the sound of a sea, The blast of thy mouth shall quench them: and song shall be only of thee.

The days that are dead shall quicken, the seasons that were shall return; And the streets and the pastures of England, the woods that burgeon and yearn, Shall be whitened with ashes of women and children and men that burn.

For the mother shall burn with the babe sprung forth of her womb in fire, And bride with bridegroom, and brother with sister, and son with sire; And the noise of the flames shall be sweet in thine ears as the sound of a lyre.

Yea, so shall thy kingdom be stablished, and so shall the signs of it be: And the world shall know, and the wind shall speak, and the sun shall see, That these are the works of thy servants, whose works bear witness to thee.

II

But the dusk of the day falls fruitless, whose light should have lit them on: Sails flash through the gloom to sh.o.r.eward, eclipsed as the sun that shone: And the west wind wakes with dawn, and the hope that was here is gone.

Around they wheel and around, two knots to the Spaniard's one, The wind-swift warriors of England, who shoot as with shafts of the sun, With fourfold shots for the Spaniard's, that spare not till day be done.

And the wind with the sundown sharpens, and hurtles the ships to the lee, And Spaniard on Spaniard smites, and shatters, and yields; and we, Ere battle begin, stand lords of the battle, acclaimed of the sea.

And the day sweeps round to the nightward; and heavy and hard the waves Roll in on the herd of the hurtling galleons; and masters and slaves Reel blind in the grasp of the dark strong wind that shall dig their graves.

For the sepulchres hollowed and shaped of the wind in the swerve of the seas, The graves that gape for their pasture, and laugh, thrilled through by the breeze, The sweet soft merciless waters, await and are fain of these.

As the hiss of a Python heaving in menace of doom to be They hear through the clear night round them, whose hours are as clouds that flee, The whisper of tempest sleeping, the heave and the hiss of the sea.

But faith is theirs, and with faith are they girded and helmed and shod: Invincible are they, almighty, elect for a sword and a rod; Invincible even as their G.o.d is omnipotent, infinite, G.o.d.

In him is their strength, who have sworn that his glory shall wax not dim: In his name are their war-ships hallowed as mightiest of all that swim: The men that shall cope with these, and conquer, shall cast out him.

In him is the trust of their hearts; the desire of their eyes is he; The light of their ways, made lightning for men that would fain be free: Earth's hosts are with them, and with them is heaven: but with us is the sea.

V

I

And a day and a night pa.s.s over; And the heart of their chief swells high; For England, the warrior, the rover, Whose banners on all winds fly, Soul-stricken, he saith, by the shadow of death, holds off him, and draws not nigh.

And the wind and the dawn together Make in from the gleaming east: And fain of the wild glad weather As famine is fain of feast, And fain of the fight, forth sweeps in its might the host of the Lord's high priest.

And lightly before the breeze The ships of his foes take wing: Are they scattered, the lords of the seas?

Are they broken, the foes of the king?

And ever now higher as a mounting fire the hopes of the Spaniard spring.

And a windless night comes down: And a breezeless morning, bright With promise of praise to crown The close of the crowning fight, Leaps up as the foe's heart leaps, and glows with l.u.s.trous rapture of light.

And stinted of gear for battle The ships of the sea's folk lie, Unwarlike, herded as cattle, Six miles from the foeman's eye That fastens as flame on the sight of them tame and offenceless, and ranged as to die.

Surely the souls in them quail, They are stricken and withered at heart, When in on them, sail by sail, Fierce marvels of monstrous art, Tower darkening on tower till the sea-winds cower crowds down as to hurl them apart.

And the windless weather is kindly, And comforts the host in these; And their hearts are uplift in them blindly, And blindly they boast at ease That the next day's fight shall exalt them, and smite with destruction the lords of the seas.

II

And lightly the proud hearts prattle, And lightly the dawn draws nigh, The dawn of the doom of the battle When these shall falter and fly; No day more great in the roll of fate filled ever with fire the sky.

To fightward they go as to feastward, And the tempest of ships that drive Sets eastward ever and eastward, Till closer they strain and strive; And the shots that rain on the hulls of Spain are as thunders afire and alive.

And about them the blithe sea smiles And flashes to windward and lee Round capes and headlands and isles That heed not if war there be; Round Sark, round Wight, green jewels of light in the ring of the golden sea.

But the men that within them abide Are stout of spirit and stark As rocks that repel the tide, As day that repels the dark; And the light bequeathed from their swords unsheathed shines lineal on Wight and on Sark.

And eastward the storm sets ever, The storm of the sails that strain And follow and close and sever And lose and return and gain; And English thunder divides in sunder the holds of the ships of Spain.

Southward to Calais, appalled And astonished, the vast fleet veers; And the skies are shrouded and palled, But the moonless midnight hears And sees how swift on them drive and drift strange flames that the darkness fears.

They fly through the night from sh.o.r.eward, Heart-stricken till morning break, And ever to scourge them forward Drives down on them England's Drake, And hurls them in as they hurtle and spin and stagger, with storm to wake.

VI

I

And now is their time come on them. For eastward they drift and reel, With the shallows of Flanders ahead, with destruction and havoc at heel, With G.o.d for their comfort only, the G.o.d whom they serve; and here Their Lord, of his great loving-kindness, may revel and make good cheer; Though ever his lips wax thirstier with drinking, and hotter the l.u.s.ts in him swell; For he feeds the thirst that consumes him with blood, and his winepress fumes with the reek of h.e.l.l.

II

Fierce noon beats hard on the battle; the galleons that loom to the lee Bow down, heel over, uplifting their shelterless hulls from the sea: From scuppers aspirt with blood, from guns dismounted and dumb, The signs of the doom they looked for, the loud mute witnesses come.

They press with sunset to seaward for comfort: and shall not they find it there?

O servants of G.o.d most high, shall his winds not pa.s.s you by, and his waves not spare?

III

The wings of the south-west wind are widened; the breath of his fervent lips, More keen than a sword's edge, fiercer than fire, falls full on the plunging ships.

The pilot is he of their northward flight, their stay and their steersman he; A helmsman clothed with the tempest, and girdled with strength to constrain the sea.

And the host of them trembles and quails, caught fast in his hand as a bird in the toils; For the wrath and the joy that fulfil him are mightier than man's, whom he slays and spoils.

And vainly, with heart divided in sunder, and labour of wavering will, The lord of their host takes counsel with hope if haply their star shine still, If haply some light be left them of chance to renew and redeem the fray; But the will of the black south-wester is lord of the councils of war to-day.

One only spirit it quells not, a splendour undarkened of chance or time; Be the praise of his foes with Oquendo for ever, a name as a star sublime.

But here what aid in a hero's heart, what help in his hand may be?

For ever the dark wind whitens and blackens the hollows and heights of the sea, And galley by galley, divided and desolate, founders; and none takes heed, Nor foe nor friend, if they perish; forlorn, cast off in their uttermost need, They sink in the whelm of the waters, as pebbles by children from sh.o.r.eward hurled, In the North Sea's waters that end not, nor know they a bourn but the bourn of the world.

Past many a secure unavailable harbour, and many a loud stream's mouth, Past Humber and Tees and Tyne and Tweed, they fly, scourged on from the south, And torn by the scourge of the storm-wind that smites as a harper smites on a lyre, And consumed of the storm as the sacrifice loved of their G.o.d is consumed with fire, And devoured of the darkness as men that are slain in the fires of his love are devoured, And deflowered of their lives by the storms, as by priests is the spirit of life deflowered.

For the wind, of its G.o.dlike mercy, relents not, and hounds them ahead to the north, With English hunters at heel, till now is the herd of them past the Forth, All huddled and hurtled seaward; and now need none wage war upon these, Nor huntsmen follow the quarry whose fall is the pastime sought of the seas.

Day upon day upon day confounds them, with measureless mists that swell, With drift of rains everlasting and dense as the fumes of ascending h.e.l.l.

The visions of priest and of prophet beholding his enemies bruised of his rod Beheld but the likeness of this that is fallen on the faithful, the friends of G.o.d.

Northward, and northward, and northward they stagger and shudder and swerve and flit, Dismantled of masts and of yards, with sails by the fangs of the storm-wind split.