Collected Poems: Volume One

by Alfred Noyes

Suddenly the flag-ship of Recaldé, stung
To fury it seemed, heeled like an avalanche
To leeward, then reeled out beyond the rest
Against the wind, alone, daring the foe
To grapple her. At once the little Revenge
With Drake's flag flying flashed at her throat,
And hardly a cable's-length away out-belched
Broadside on broadside, under those great cannon,
Crashing through five-foot beams, four shots to one,
While Howard and the rest swept to and fro
Keeping at deadly bay the rolling hulks
That looming like Leviathans now plunged
Desperately against the freshening wind
To rescue the great flag-ship where she lay
Alone, amid the cannonades of Drake,
Alone, like a volcanic island lashed
With crimson hurricanes, dinning the winds
With isolated thunders, flaking the skies
With wrathful lava, while great spars and blocks
Leapt through the cloudy glare and fell, far off,
Like small black stones into the hissing sea.

Oquendo saw her peril far away!
His rushing prow thro' heaven begins to loom,
Oquendo, first in all that proud array,
Hath heart the pride of Spain to reassume:
He comes; the rolling seas are dusked with gloom
Of his great sails! Now round him once again,
Thrust out your oars, ye mighty hulks of doom;
Forward, with hiss of whip and clank of chain!
Let twice ten hundred slaves bring on the wrath of Spain!

Sidonia comes! Toledo comes!—huge ranks
That rally against the storm from sky to sky,
As down the dark blood-rusted chain-locked planks
Of labouring galleys the dark slave-guards ply
Their knotted scourges, and the red flakes fly
From bare scarred backs that quiver and heave once more,
And slaves that heed not if they live or die
Pull with numb arms at many a red-stained oar,
Nor know the sea's dull crash from cannon's growing roar.

Bring on the wrath! From heaven to rushing heaven
The white foam sweeps around their fierce array;
In vain before their shattering crimson levin
The ships of England flash and dart away:
Not England's heart can hold that host at bay!
See, a swift signal shoots along her line,
Her ships are scattered, they fly, they fly like spray
Driven against the wind by wrath divine,
While, round Recaldé now, Sidonia's cannon shine.

The wild sea-winds with golden trumpets blaze!
One wave will wash away the crimson stain
That blots Recaldé's decks. Her first amaze
Is over: down the Channel once again
Turns the triumphant pageantry of Spain
In battle-order, now. Behind her, far,
While the broad sun sinks to the Western main,
Glitter the little ships of England's war,
And over them in heaven glides out the first white star.

The sun goes down: the heart of Spain is proud:
Her censers fume, her golden trumpets blow!
Into the darkening East with cloud on cloud
Of broad-flung sail her huge sea-castles go:
Rich under blazoned poops like rose-flushed snow
Tosses the foam. Far off the sunset gleams:
Her banners like a thousand sunsets glow,
As down the darkening East the pageant streams,
Full-fraught with doom for England, rigged with princely dreams.

Nay, "rigged with curses dark," as o'er the waves
Drake watched them slowly sweeping into the gloom
That thickened down the Channel, watched them go
In ranks compact, roundels impregnable,
With Biscay's bristling broad-beamed squadron drawn
Behind for rear-guard. As the sun went down
Drake flew the council-flag. Across the sea
That gleamed still like a myriad-petalled rose
Up to the little Revenge the pinnaces foamed.

There, on Drake's powder-grimed escutcheoned poop
They gathered, Admirals and great flag-captains,
Hawking, Frobisher, shining names and famous,
And some content to serve and follow and fight
Where duty called unknown, but heroes all.
High on the poop they clustered, gazing East
With faces dark as iron against the flame
Of sunset, eagle-faces, iron lips,
And keen eyes fiercely flashing as they turned
Like sword-flames now, or dark and deep as night
Watching the vast Armada slowly mix
Its broad-flung sails with twilight where it dragged
Thro' thickening heavens its curdled storms of clouds
Down the wide darkening Channel.
"My Lord Howard,"
Said Drake, "it seems we have but scarred the skins
Of those huge hulks: the hour grows late for England.
'Twere well to handle them again at once." A growl
Of fierce approval answered; but Lord Howard
Cried out, "Attack we cannot, save at risk
Of our whole fleet. It is not death I fear,
But England's peril. We have fought all day,
Accomplished nothing. Half our powder is spent!
I think it best to hang upon their flanks
Till we be reinforced."
"My lord," said Drake,
"Had we that week to spare for which I prayed,
And were we handling them in Spanish seas,
We might delay. There is no choosing now.
Yon hulks of doom are steadfastly resolved
On one tremendous path and solid end—
To join their powers with Parma's thirty thousand
(Not heeding our light horsemen of the sea),
Then in one earthquake of o'erwhelming arms
Roll Europe over England. They've not grasped
The first poor thought which now and evermore
Must be the sceptre of Britain, the steel trident
Of ocean-sovereignty. That mighty fleet
Invincible, impregnable, omnipotent,
Must here and now be shattered, never be joined
With Parma, never abase the wind-swept sea, With oaken roads for thundering legions
To trample in the splendour of the sun
From Europe to our island.
As for food,
In yonder enemy's fleet there is food enough
To feed a nation; ay, and powder enough
To split an empire. I will answer for it
Ye shall not lack of either, nor for shot,
Not though ye pluck them out of your own beams
To feed your hungry cannon. Cast your bread
Upon the waters. Think not of the Queen!
She will not send it! For she hath not known
(How could she know?) this wide new realm of hers,
When we ourselves—her seamen—scarce have learnt
What means this kingdom of the ocean-sea
To England and her throne—food, life-blood, life!
She could not understand who, when our ships
Put out from Plymouth, hardly gave them store
Of powder and shot to last three fighting days,
Or rations even for those. Blame not the Queen,
Who hath striven for England as no king hath fought
Since England was a nation. Bear with me,
For I must pour my heart before you now
This one last time. Yon fishing-boats have brought
Tidings how on this very day she rode
Before her mustered pikes at Tilbury.
Methinks I see her riding down their lines
High on her milk-white Barbary charger, hear
Her voice—'My people, though my flesh be woman,
My heart is of your kingly lion's breed:
I come myself to lead you!' I see the sun
Shining upon her armour, hear the voice
Of all her armies roaring like one sea—
God save Elizabeth, our English Queen!
'God save her,' I say, too; but still she dreams,
As all too many of us—bear with me!—dream,
Of Crécy, when our England's war was thus;
When we, too, hurled our hosts across the deep
As now Spain dreams to hurl them on our isle.
But now our war is otherwise. We claim
The sea's command, and Spain shall never land One swordsman on our island. Blame her not,
But look not to the Queen. The people fight
This war of ours, not princes. In this hour
God maketh us a people. We have seen
Victories, never victory like to this,
When in our England's darkest hour of need
Her seamen, without wage, powder, or food,
Are yet on fire to fight for her. Your ships
Tossing in the great sunset of an Empire,
Dawn of a sovereign people, are all manned
By heroes, raggèd, hungry, who will die
Like flies ere long, because they have no food
But turns to fever-breeding carrion
Not fit for dogs. They are half-naked, hopeless
Living, of any reward; and if they die
They die a dog's death. We shall reap the fame
While they—great God! and all this cannot quench
The glory in their eyes. They will be served
Six at the mess of four, eking it out
With what their own rude nets may catch by night,
Silvering the guns and naked arms that haul
Under the stars with silver past all price,
While some small ship-boy in the black crow's nest
Watches across the waters for the foe.
My lord, it is a terrible thing for Spain
When poor men thus go out against her princes;
For so God whispers 'Victory' in our ears,
I cannot dare to doubt it."

Once again
A growl of fierce approval answered him,
And Hawkins cried—"I stand by Francis Drake";
But Howard, clinging to his old-world order,
Yet with such manly strength as dared to rank
Drake's wisdom of the sea above his own,
Sturdily shook his head. "I dare not risk
A close attack. Once grappled we are doomed.
We'll follow on their trail no less, with Drake
Leading. Our oriflamme to-night shall be
His cresset and stern-lanthorn. Where that shines
We follow."

Drake, still thinking in his heart,—
"And if Spain be not shattered here and now
We are doomed no less," must even rest content
With that good vantage.
As the sunset died
Over the darkling emerald seas that swelled
Before the freshening wind, the pinnaces dashed
To their own ships; and into the mind of Drake
There stole a plot that twitched his lips to a smile.
High on the heaving purple of the poop
Under the glimmer of firm and full-blown sails
He stood, an iron statue, glancing back
Anon at his stern-cresset's crimson flare,
The star of all the shadowy ships that plunged
Like ghosts amid the grey stream of his wake,
And all around him heard the low keen song
Of hidden ropes above the wail and creak
Of blocks and long low swish of cloven foam,
A keen rope-music in the formless night,
A harmony, a strong intent good sound,
Well-strung and taut, singing the will of man.
"Your oriflamme," he muttered,—"so you travail
With sea-speech in the tongue of old Poictiers—
Shall be my own stern-lanthorn. Watch it well,
My good Lord Howard."
Over the surging seas
The little Revenge went swooping on the trail,
Leading the ships of England. One by one
Out of the gloom before them slowly crept,
Sinister gleam by gleam, like blood-red stars,
The rearmost lanthorns of the Spanish Fleet,
A shaggy purple sky of secret storm
Heaving from north to south upon the black
Breast of the waters. Once again with lips
Twitched to a smile, Drake suddenly bade them crowd
All sail upon the little Revenge. She leapt
Forward. Smiling he watched the widening gap
Between the ships that followed and her light,
Then as to those behind, its flicker must seem
Wellnigh confused with those of Spain, he cried,
"Now, master bo'sun, quench their oriflamme, Dip their damned cresset in the good black Sea!
The rearmost light of Spain shall lead them now,
A little closer, if they think it ours.
Pray God, they come to blows!"
Even as he spake
His cresset-flare went out in the thick night;
A fluttering as of blind bewildered moths
A moment seized upon the shadowy ships
Behind him, then with crowded sail they steered
Straight for the rearmost cresset-flare of Spain.