THE REVENGE.

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET.

AUGUST, 1591.

Ar Flores in the Azores, Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a fluttered 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?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I 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."

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 thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

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 turned my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared 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 through the long sealane between.

Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their

decks and laughed,

Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad

little craft

Running on and on, till delayed

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 stayed.

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 star

board lay,

And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

But anon the great San Philip, she bethought 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.

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 highbuilt 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 shattered, and so could fight us no more

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

For he said "Fight on! fight on!"

Though his vessel was all but a wreck ;

And it chanced that, when half of the 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 sud

denly dead,

And himself, he was wounded again in the side and the head.

And he said "Fight on! fight on!"