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 feared that we still could sting,

So they watched 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 maimed 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 !"

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.

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.

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 manned the Revenge with a swarthier, alien crew,

And away she sailed with her loss and longed for

her own;

When a wind from the lands they had ruined 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 earth

quake 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 shotshattered navy of Spain,

And the little Revenge herself went down by the

island crags,

To be lost evermore in the main.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

KINMONT WILLIE.

1596.

O HAVE ye na heard o' the fause Sakelde?

O have ye na heard o' the keen Lord Scroope? How they hae ta'en bauld Kinmont Willie,

On Haribee to hang him up?

Had Willie had but twenty men,

But twenty men as stout as he,

Fause Sakelde had never the Kinmont ta'en,
Wi' eight score in his companie.

They band his legs beneath the steed,

They tied his hands behind his back; They guarded him, fivesome on each side, And they brought him ower the Liddel-rack.2

1 Haribee is the place of execution at Carlisle.

2 A ford on the Liddel.

They led him through the Liddel-rack,
And also through the Carlisle sands;
They brought him to Carlisle Castell,
To be at my Lord Scroope's commands.

"My hands are tied, but my tongue is free, And whae will dare this deed avow?

Or answer by the Border law?

Or answer to the bauld Buccleuch?"

"Now haud thy tongue, thou rank reiver !1 There's never a Scot shall set thee free: Before ye cross my castle gate,

I trow ye shall take farewell o' me!"

Fear na ye that, my lord," quo' Willie : "By the faith o' my body, Lord Scroope,"

"I never yet lodged in a hostelrie,

But I paid my lawing 2 before I gaed."

Now word is gane to the bauld Keeper,
In Branksome Ha' where that he lay,

That Lord Scroope has ta'en the Kinmont Willie,
Between the hours of night and day.

1 Reiver, -robber.

2 Lawing, reckoning.