Ere with the sun her sails are set
The Rota frigate glides
And the great ship Plantagenet
To stations at her sides:
They carry six score guns and ten,
They serve the British crown,
They muster o'er a thousand men—
To win were small renown.
'Twas by Fayal, where Portugal
Still flaunts her Blue-and-White;
What cares their Floyd for Portugal
Or what cares he for right?
He starts his signals down the line—
Our flag is flying free—
His weapons in the moonbeams shine,
His boats drop on the sea.
Straight to the Armstrong swift they come.
Speak, or I fire! shouts Reid—
Their rattling rowlocks louder hum
To mark their heightened speed.
Fierce o'er their moonlit path there stream
Bright glares of crimson flame;
Our muskets but an instant gleam,
Yet leave them wounded, lame.
They try a feeble, brief reply
Ere back their course is sped.
Before our marksmanship they fly,
Their living with their dead.
Floyd swears upon his faith and all
The Armstrong shall be his;
He scorns rebuke from Portugal,
But not such enemies;
So guns are charged with canister
And picked men go to fight:
Brave hearts and doomed full many were
In the Azores that night.
From nine until the nick of twelve
Their boats are seen to throng
Where rocky islets slant and shelve
Safe from our bullets' song;
Then out they dash, their small arms flash,
While blare their carronades,
Their boarding-pikes and axes clash,
Their guns and cutlass blades.
Our Long Tom speaks, our shrapnel shrieks;
But ere we load again,
On every side the battle reeks
Of thrice a hundred men.
Our rail is low, and there the foe
Cling as they shoot and hack.
We stab them as they climb a-row,
Slaying, nor turning back.
They dash up now upon our bow,
And there our hearties haste;
Now at our stern their muskets burn,
And now along our waist.
Our fo'c'sle weeps when Williams dies,
When Worth falls in his blood,
But bleeding through the battle-cries
Our gallant Johnson stood;
The British muskets snapt and spat
Till Reid came in his wrath,
His brow so pale with purpose that
It glistened down his path.
Forth from the quarter-deck he springs,
He and his men with cheers;
On British skulls his cutlass rings,
His pistols in their ears;
His men beside him hold him good
Till spent the foeman's breath;
Where at our sides a Briton stood,
A Briton sank in death;
Though weak our men with blood and sweat,
Our sides a riddled wreck,
Yet ne'er a British foot is set
Upon the Armstrong's deck.
Three hundred men their Admiral sent
Our schooner's ways to mend:
A hundred British sailors went
Down to a warrior's end.
Two of our lads in death are red,
But safe the flag above:
God grant that never worse be sped
The fray for all we love!
The General Armstrong lies beneath
The waves in far Fayal,
But still his countrymen shall wreathe
Reid's name with laurels tall;
The sun and moon are fair to see
Above the blue Azores,
But fairer far Reid's victory
Beside their storied shores.