Theodore Watts-Dunton Part 33

When all are slain, the tempest's wings have fled, But still the sea is dreaming of the storm: Far down the offing glows a spot of red, My soul knows well it hath that Inca's form.

'It lights,' quoth I, 'the red cross banner of Spain There on the flags.h.i.+p where Medina sleeps- h.e.l.l's banner, wet with sweat of Indian's pain, And tears of women yoked to treasure train, Scarlet of blood for which the New World weeps.'

There on the dark the flags.h.i.+p of the Don To me seems luminous of the spectre's glow; But soon an arc of gold, and then the sun, Rise o'er the reddening billows, proud and slow; Then, through the curtains of the morning mist, That take all s.h.i.+fting colours as they shake, I see the great Armada coil and twist Miles, miles along the ocean's amethyst, Like h.e.l.l's old snake of hate-the winged snake.

And, when the hazy veils of Morn are thinned, That snake accursed, with wings which swell and puff Before the slackening horses of the wind, Turns into s.h.i.+ning s.h.i.+ps that tack and luff.

'Behold,' quoth I, 'their floating citadels, The same the priests have vouched for musket-proof, Caracks and hulks and nimble caravels, That sailed with us to sound of Lisbon bells- Yea, sailed from Tagus' mouth, for Christ's behoof.

For Christ's behoof they sailed: see how they go With that red skeleton to show the way There sitting on Medina's stem aglow- A hundred sail and forty-nine, men say; Behold them, brothers, galleon and galea.s.se- Their dizened turrets bright of many a plume, Their gilded p.o.o.ps, their s.h.i.+ning guns of bra.s.s, Their trucks, their flags-behold them, how they pa.s.s- With G.o.d's Revenge for figurehead-to Doom!'

Then Ben Jonson, the symposiarch, rises and calls upon Raleigh to tell the story of the defeat of the Great Armada. I can give only a stanza or two and the chorus:-

RALEIGH

The choirboys sing the matin song, When down falls Seymour on the Spaniard's right.

He drives the wing-a huddled throng- Back on the centre s.h.i.+ps, that steer for flight.

While galleon hurtles galea.s.se, And oars that fight each other kill the slaves, As scythes cut down the summer gra.s.s, Drake closes on the writhing ma.s.s, Through which the b.a.l.l.s at closest ranges pa.s.s, Skimming the waves.

Fiercely do galley and galea.s.se fight, Running from s.h.i.+p to s.h.i.+p like living things.

With oars like legs, with beaks that smite, Winged centipedes they seem with tattered wings.

Through smoke we see their chiefs encased In s.h.i.+ning mail of gold where blood congeals; And once I see within a waist Wild English captives ashen-faced, Their bending backs by Spanish scourges laced In purple weals.

[DAVID GWYNN here leaps up, pale and panting, and bares a scarred arm, but at a sign from RALEIGH sits down again.

The Don fights well, but fights not now The cozened Indian whom he kissed for friend, To pluck the gold from off the brow, Then fling the flesh to priests to burn and rend.

He hunts not now the Indian maid With bloodhound's bay-Peru's confiding daughter, Who saw in flowery bower or glade The stranger's G.o.d-like cavalcade, And wors.h.i.+pped, while he planned Pizarro's trade Of rape and slaughter.

His fight is now with Drake and Wynter, Hawkins, and Frobisher, and English fire, Bullet and cannon ball and splinter, Till every deck gleams, greased with b.l.o.o.d.y mire: Heaven smiles to see that battle wage, Close battle of musket, carabine, and gun: Oh, vainly doth the Spaniard rage Like any wolf that tears his cage!

'Tis English sails shall win the weather gauge Till set of sun!

Their troops, superfluous as their gold, Out-numbering all their seamen two to one, Are packed away in every hold- Targets of flesh for every English gun- Till, like Pizarro's halls of blood, Or slaughter-pens where swine or beeves are pinned, Lee-scuppers pour a crimson flood, Reddening the waves for many a rood, As eastward, eastward still the galleons scud Before the wind.

The chief leit-motiv of the poem is the metrical idea that whenever a stanza ends with the word 'sea,' Ben Jonson and the rest of the jolly companions break into this superb chorus:-

The sea!

Thus did England fight; And shall not England smite With Drake's strong stroke in battles yet to be?

And while the winds have power Shall England lose the dower She won in that great hour- The sea?

Raleigh leaves off his narrative at the point when the Armada is driven out to the open sea. He sits down, and Gwynn, worked into a frenzy of excitement, now starts up and finishes the story in the same metre, but in quite a different spirit. In Gwynn's fevered imagination the skeleton which he describes in his own narrative now leads the doomed Armada to its destruction:-

GWYNN

With towering sterns, with golden stems That totter in the smoke before their foe, I see them pa.s.s the mouth of Thames, With death above the billows, death below!

Who leads them down the tempest's path, From Thames to Yare, from Yare to Tweedmouth blown, Past many a Scottish hill and strath, All helpless in the wild wind's wrath, Each mainmast stooping, creaking like a lath?

The Skeleton!

At length with toil the cape is pa.s.sed, And faster and faster still the billows come To coil and boil till every mast Is flecked with clinging flakes of snowy foam.

I see, I see, where galleons pitch, That Inca's bony shape burn on the waves, Flus.h.i.+ng each emerald scarp and ditch, While Mother Carey, Orkney's witch, Waves to the Spectre's song her lantern-switch O'er ocean-graves.

The glimmering crown of Scotland's head They pa.s.s. No foe dares follow but the storm.

The Spectre, like a sunset red, Illumines mighty Wrath's defiant form, And makes the dreadful granite peak Burn o'er the s.h.i.+ps with brows of prophecy; Yea, makes that silent countenance speak Above the tempest's foam and reek, More loud than all the loudest winds that shriek, 'Tyrants, ye die!'

The Spectre, by the Orkney Isles, Writes 'G.o.d's Revenge' on waves that climb and dash, Foaming right up the sand-built piles, Where s.h.i.+ps are hurled. It sings amid the crash; Yea, sings amid the tempest's roar, Snapping of ropes, crackling of spars set free, And yells of captives chained to oar, And cries of those who strike for sh.o.r.e, 'Spain's murderous breath of blood shall foul no more The righteous sea!'

The poem ends with the famous wa.s.sail chorus which has been often quoted in anthologies:-

Wa.s.sAIL CHORUS

CHORUS

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, Where he goes with fondest face, Brightest eye, brightest hair: Tell the Mermaid where is that one place: Where?

RALEIGH

'Tis by Devon's glorious halls, Whence, dear Ben, I come again: Bright with golden roofs and walls- El Dorado's rare domain- Seem those halls when sunlight launches Shafts of gold through leafless branches, Where the winter's feathery mantle blanches Field and farm and lane.

CHORUS

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, Where he goes with fondest face, Brightest eye, brightest hair: Tell the Mermaid where is that one place: Where?

DRAYTON

'Tis where Avon's wood-sprites weave Through the boughs a lace of rime, While the bells of Christmas Eve Fling for Will the Stratford-chime O'er the river-flags embossed Rich with flowery runes of frost- O'er the meads where snowy tufts are tossed- Strains of olden time.

CHORUS

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, Where he goes with fondest face, Brightest eye, brightest hair: Tell the Mermaid where is that one place: Where?

SHAKSPEARE'S FRIEND

'Tis, methinks, on any ground Where our Shakspeare's feet are set.

There smiles Christmas, holly-crowned With his blithest coronet: Friends.h.i.+p's face he loveth well: 'Tis a countenance whose spell Sheds a balm o'er every mead and dell Where we used to fret.

CHORUS

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, Where he goes with fondest face, Brightest eye, brightest hair: Tell the Mermaid where is that one place Where?

HEYWOOD

More than all the pictures, Ben, Winter weaves by wood or stream, Christmas loves our London, when Rise thy clouds of wa.s.sail-steam- Clouds like these, that, curling, take Forms of faces gone, and wake Many a lay from lips we loved, and make London like a dream.

CHORUS

Christmas knows a merry, merry place, Where he goes with fondest face, Brightest eye, brightest hair: Tell the Mermaid where is that one place Where?

BEN JONSON

Love's old songs shall never die, Yet the new shall suffer proof; Love's old drink of Yule brew I, Wa.s.sail for new love's behoof: Drink the drink I brew, and sing Till the berried branches swing, Till our song make all the Mermaid ring- Yea, from rush to roof.

FINALE