Poetry shines out of his stumbling verses like the setting sun through a thicket of thorns. Their "Totnes" is an uncommonly old town, mainly consisting of that "long street" where, when a boy, he met "godly Drake." At its East-Gate is the Brutus-stone—for here Brut of Troy is said first to have trodden English soil, having landed from the Dart. Twenty miles distant to westward of the town lies on its rivers Plymouth—the Spaniards' wasps' nest—its Drake in stone now gazing out to sea from its Hoe. Twenty miles to the east on the coast is Hayes Barton, where Raleigh was born about 1552. And seven miles down the Dart is the village of Greenway, the home of his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert, the discoverer of Newfoundland, who was in that year a boy of about sixteen. Here amid-stream juts up the Anchor Rock upon which, runs the story, the discoverer of tobacco and of the potato used to sit and smoke his pipe. In 1587 Gilbert and Raleigh sailed together in search of the as yet Unfoundland, but on that voyage in vain.
[200]. "For Hally Now is Dead."
Hally was Henry, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of James I., Queen Elizabeth's godson, and a beloved patron of the arts and poetry to whom Sir Walter Raleigh looked for happy favours. He was little of body and quick of spirit, and, like Alexander, delighted "to witch the World with noble horsemanship." He died when he was nineteen. In Windsor Castle may be seen a suit of armour made for this young prince when he was a boy—a suit which for grace and craftsmanship is said to be one of the most beautiful things of its kind in the world.
[202]. "Henry Before Agincourt."
Here, again, the verse of this ancient fragment jolts, jars, and moves cumbrously as a cannon over rocky ground. But how wide and moving a picture it presents, and how noble is its utterance.
[203]. "Alexander the Great."
This is the translation of another ancient Irish poem made by Kuno Meyer. Plutarch wrote Alexander's Life (comparing him with Julius Caesar), in which the young prince is pictured as if by Velasquez. Here are a few words from the translation of this life which Sir Thomas North made from the French of Amiot:
"The ambition and desire he (Alexander) had of honour showed a certain greatness of mind and noble courage, passing his years.... For when he was asked one day (because he was swift of foot) whether he would assay to run for victory at the Olympian Games, 'I could be content' (said he), 'so I might run with Kings'." When, too, "they brought him news that his Father had taken some famous city, or had won some great battle, he was nothing glad to hear it, but would say to his playfellows: 'Sirs, my Father will have all: I shall have nothing left me to conquer with you that shall be ought worth' ..."
"Is it even so?" said my lady.
"Even so!" said my lord.