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AT Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,

And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away; "Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "Fore God I am no coward; But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"

1 See the Life of Tennyson, II. 51-2.

II

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "1 know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.

But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them. my Lord Howard, To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

III

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent

summer heaven:

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land

Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below:

For we brought them all aboard, And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

IV

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight

And he sailed away from Flores till the
Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon
the weather bow.

"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set."

And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.

VI

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and laugh'd, Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft Running on and on, till delay'd By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns, Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.

VII

And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud

Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,

Four galleons drew away

From the Spanish fleet that day,

And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,

And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

VIII

But anon the great San Philip, she be thought herself and went,

Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;

And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand, For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers.

And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears When he leaps from the water to the land.

IX

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer

sea,

But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three. Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came, Ship after ship, the whole night long.

with her battle-thunder and flame: Ship after ship, the whole night long.

drew back with her dead and her shame.

For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no

more

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

X

For he said, "Fight on! fight on!" Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck; And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone, With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,

But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,

And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head, And he said, "Fight on! fight on!"

ΧΙ

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,

And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;

But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting,

So they watch'd what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,
Seeing forty of our poor hundred were
slain,

And half of the rest of us maim'd for life

In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;

And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold, And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent ; And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;

But Sir Richard cried in his English pride:

"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night

As may never be fought again!

We have won great glory, my men!
And a day less or more

At sea or ashore,

We die-does it matter when?

Sink me the ship, Master Gunner-sink her, split her in twain !

Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain ! "

XII

And the gunner said, "Ay, ay," but the seamen made reply:

"We have children, we have wives, And the Lord hath spared our lives. We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;

We shall live to fight again and to strike

another blow."

And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.

XIII

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,

Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last, And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace; But he rose upon their decks, and he cried :

"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;

I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.

With a joyful spirit I Sir Richard Grenville die!"

And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

XIV

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 raised 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.

1878.

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Frail were the works that defended the hold that we held with our livesWomen and children among us, God

help them, our children and wives! Hold it we might-and for fifteen days or for twenty at most. "Never surrender, I charge you, but

every man die at his post!" Voice of the dead whom we loved, our Lawrence, the best of the brave; Cold were his brows when we kiss'd him-we laid him that night in

his grave. "Every man die at his post!" and there hail'd on our houses and halls Death from their rifle bullets, and death from their cannon-balls, Death in our innermost chamber, and death at our slight barricade, Death while we stood with the musket, and death while we stooped to the spade,

Death to the dying, and wounds to the wounded, for often there fell, Striking the hospital wall, crashing

thro' it, their shot and their shell, Death-for their spies were among us. their marksmen were told of our best,

So that the brute bullet broke thro' the brain that could think for the rest; Bullets would sing by our foreheads, and bullets would rain at our feet

1 "The old flag used during the defence of the Residency, was hoisted on the Lucknow flagstaff by General Wilson, and the soldiers who still survived from the siege were all mustered on parade in honor of this poem, when my son Lionel (who died on his journey from India) visited Lucknow. A tribute overwhelmingly touching." (Tennyson.)

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Ay, but the foe sprung his mine many times, and it chanced on a day Soon as the blast of that underground thunder-clap echo'd away

Dark thro' the smoke and the sulphur like so many fiends in their hellCannon-shot, musket-shot, volley on volley, and yell upon yellFiercely on all the defences our myriad enemy fell.

What have they done? where is it? Out yonder. Guard the Redan! Storm at the Water-gate! storm at the Bailey-gate! storm, and it ran Surging and swaying all round us, as ocean on every side

Plunges and heaves at a bank that is daily drowned by the tideSo many thousands that, if they be bold enough, who shall escape? Kill or be kill'd, live or die, they shall know we are soldiers and men ! Ready! take aim at their leaders-their

masses are gapp'd with our grapeBackward they reel like the wave, like

the wave fingering forward again, Flying and foil'd at the last by the handful they could not subdue; And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew!

IV

Handful of men as we were, we were English in heart and in limb, Strong with the strength of the race to command, to obey, to endure,

Each of us fought as if hope for the garrison hung but on him; Still-could we watch at all points? we were every day fewer and fewer. There was a whisper among us, but only a whisper that past : "Children and wives-if the tigers leap into the fold unawaresEvery man die at his post-and the foe may outlive us at last

Better to fall by the hands that they love, than to fall into theirs!" Roar upon roar in a moment two mines by the enemy sprung Clove into perilous chasms our walls and our poor palisades.

Riflemen, true is your heart, but be sure that your hand be as true! Sharp is the fire of assault, better aimed are your flank fusiladesTwice do we hurl them to earth from the ladders to which they had clung,

Twice from the ditch where they shelter we drive them with hand-grenades;

And ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew !

V

Then on another wild morning another wild earthquake out-tore

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Clean from our lines of defence ten or twelve good paces or more. Riflemen, high on the roof, hidden there from the light of the sun One has leaped up on the breach, crying out: Follow me, follow me!"Mark him-he falls! then another and him too, and down goes he. Had they been bold enough then, who can tell but the traitors had won? Boardings and rafters and doors-an

embrasure! make way for the gun! Now double-charge it with grape! It is charged and we fire, and they run. Praise to our Indian brothers, and let the dark face have his due! Thanks to the kindly dark faces who fought with us, faithful and few, Fought with the bravest among us, and

drove them, and smote them, and slew,

That ever upon the topmost roof our banner in India blew.

VI

Men will forget what we suffer and not what we do. We can fight!

But to be soldier all day, and be sentinel all thro' the night

Ever the mine and assault, our sallies, their lying alarms,

Bugles and drums in the darkness, and shoutings and soundings to arms, Ever the labor of fifty that had to be done by five,

Ever the marvel among us that one should be left alive,

Ever the day with its traitorous death from the loopholes around, Ever the night with its coffinless corpse to be laid in the ground,

Heat like the mouth of a hell, or a deluge of cataract skies,

Stench of old offal decaying, and infinite torment of flies,

Thoughts of the breezes of May blowing over an English field,

Cholera, scurvy, and fever, the wound that would not be heal'd, Lopping away of the limb by the pitifulpitiless knife,

Torture and trouble in vain,-for it never could save us a life,

Valor of delicate women who tended the hospital bed,

Horror of women in travail among the dying and dead,

Grief for our perishing children, and never a moment for grief, Toil and ineffable weariness, faltering hopes of relief,

Havelock baffled, or beaten, or butcher'd for all that we knew-

Then day and night, day and night, coming down on the still-shatter'd walls

Millions of musket-bullets, and thousands of cannon-balls

But ever upon the topmost roof our banner of England blew.

VII

Hark cannonade, fusillade! is it true what was told by the scout, Outram and Havelock breaking their

way through the fell mutineers ? Surely the pibroch of Europe is ringing again in our ears?

All on a sudden the garrison utter a jubilant shout,

Havelock's glorious Highlanders answer

with conquering cheers,

Sick from the hospital echo them, women
and children come out,
Blessing the wholesome white faces of
Havelock's good fusileers,

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