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 honor 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 rais'd 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.
There is no land like England, where'er the light of day be;
There are no hearts like English hearts, such hearts of oak as
they be.
Tennyson.
[LXXXII]. HERVÉ RIEL.
Robert Browning.—1812-
On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French,—woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frighten'd porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.