And a many leaped and left her; but, God rest ’em! some were braver;
Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to God knows where.”
At the shock, he said, the Vanguard shook through all her timbers oaken;
It was like the shock of Doomsday,—not a tar but shuddered hard.
All was hushed for one strange moment; then that awful calm was broken
By the heavy plash that answered the descent of mast and yard.
So, her cannon still defying, and her colours flaming, flying,
In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead,
Soared the Orient into darkness with her living and her dying:
“Yet our lads made shift to rescue three-score souls,” the seaman said.