So on a misty grey December morn
Five ships put out from calm old Plymouth Sound;
Five little ships, the largest not so large
As many a coasting yacht or fishing-trawl
To-day; yet these must brave uncharted seas
Of unimagined terrors, haunted glooms,
And shadowy horrors of an unknown world
Wild as primeval chaos. In the first,
The _Golden Hynde_, a ship of eighteen guns,
Drake sailed: John Wynter, a queen's captain, next
Brought out the _Elizabeth_, a stout new ship
Of sixteen guns. The pinnace _Christopher_
Came next, in staunch command of old Tom Moone
Who, five years back, with reeking powder grimed,
Off Cartagena fought against the stars
All night, and, as the sun arose in blood,
Knee-deep in blood and brine, stood in the dark
Perilous hold and scuttled his own ship
The _Swan_, bidding her down to God's great deep
Rather than yield her up a prize to Spain.
Lastly two gentleman-adventurers
Brought out the new _Swan_ and the _Marygold_.
Their crews, all told, were eight score men and boys.
Not only terrors of the deep they braved,
Bodiless witchcrafts of the black abyss,
Red gaping mouths of hell and gulfs of fire
That yawned for all who passed the tropic line;
But death lurked round them from their setting forth.
Mendoza, plenipotentiary of Spain,
By spies informed, had swiftly warned his king,
Who sent out mandates through his huge empire
From Gaudalchiber to the golden West
For the instant sinking of all English ships
And the instant execution of their crews
Who durst appear in the Caribbean sea.
Moreover, in the pith of their emprise
A peril lurked--Burleigh's emissaries,
The smooth-tongued Thomas Doughty, who had brought
His brother--unacquitted of that charge
Of poisoning, raised against him by the friends
Of Essex, but in luckless time released
Lately for lack of proof, on no strong plea.
These two wound through them like two snakes at ease
In Eden, waiting for their venomous hour.
Especially did Thomas Doughty toil
With soft and flowery tongue to win his way;
And Drake, whose rich imagination craved
For something more than simple seaman's talk,
Was marvellously drawn to this new friend
Who with the scholar's mind, the courtier's gloss,
The lawyer's wit, the adventurer's romance,
Gold honey from the blooms of Euphues,
Rare flashes from the _Mermaid_ and sweet smiles
Copied from Sidney's self, even to the glance
Of sudden, liquid sympathy, gave Drake
That banquet of the soul he ne'er had known
Nor needed till he knew, but needed now.
So to the light of Doughty's answering eyes
He poured his inmost thoughts out, hour by hour;
And Doughty coiled up in the heart of Drake.
Against such odds the tiny fleet set sail;
Yet gallantly and with heroic pride,
Escutcheoned pavisades, emblazoned poops,
Banners and painted shields and close-fights hung
With scarlet broideries. Every polished gun
Grinned through the jaws of some heraldic beast,
Gilded and carven and gleaming with all hues;
While in the cabin of the _Golden Hynde_
Rich perfumes floated, given by the great Queen
Herself to Drake as Captain-General;
So that it seemed her soul was with the fleet,
A presence to remind him, far away,
Of how he talked with England, face to face,--
No pirate he, but Gloriana's knight.
Silver and gold his table furniture,
Engraved and richly chased, lavishly gleamed
While, fanned by favouring airs, the ships advanced
With streaming flags and ensigns and sweet chords
Of music struck by skilled musicians
Whom Drake brought with him, not from vanity,
But knowing how the pulse of men beats high
To music; and the hearts of men like these
Were open to the high romance of earth,
And they that dwelt so near God's mystery
Were proud of their own manhood. They went out
To danger, as to a sweetheart, far away.
Light as the sea-birds dipping their white wings
In foam before the gently heaving prows
Each heart beat, while the low soft lapping splash
Of water racing past them ripped and tore
Whiter and faster, and the bellying sails
Filled out, and the chalk cliffs of England sank
Dwindling behind the broad grey plains of sea.
Meekly content and tamely stay-at-home
The sea-birds seemed that piped across the waves;
And Drake, be-mused, leaned smiling to his friend
Doughty and said, "Is it not strange to know
When we return yon speckled herring-gulls
Will still be wheeling, dipping, flashing there?
We shall not find a fairer land afar
Than those thyme-scented hills we leave behind!
Soon the young lambs will bleat across the combes,
And breezes will bring puffs of hawthorn scent
Down Devon lanes; over the purple moors
Lavrocks will carol; and on the village greens
Around the May-pole, while the moon hangs low,
The boys and girls of England merrily swing
In country footing through the morrice dance.
But many of us indeed shall not return."
Then the other with a laugh, "Nay, like the man
Who slept a hundred years we shall return
And find our England strange: there are great storms
Brewing; God only knows what we shall find--
Perchance a Spanish king upon the throne!
What then?" And Drake, "I should put down my helm,
And out once more to the unknown golden West
To die, as I have lived, in a free land."
So said he, while the white cliffs dwindled down,
Faded, and vanished; but the prosperous wind
Carried the five ships onward over the swell
Of swinging, sweeping seas, till the sun sank,
And height o'er height the chaos of the skies
Broke out into the miracle of the stars.
Frostily glittering, all the Milky Way
Lay bare like diamond-dust upon the robe
Of some great king. Orion and the Plough
Glimmered through drifting gulfs of silver fleece,
And, far away, in Italy, that night
Young Galileo, looking upward, heard
The self-same whisper through that wild abyss
Which now called Drake out to the unknown West.
But, after supper, Drake came up on deck
With Doughty, and on the cold poop as they leaned
And gazed across the rolling gleam and gloom
Of mighty muffled seas, began to give
Voices to those lovely captives of the brain
Which, like princesses in some forest-tower,
Still yearn for the delivering prince, the sweet
Far bugle-note that calls from answering minds.
He told him how, in those dark days which now
Seemed like an evil dream, when the Princess
Elizabeth even trembled for her life
And read there, by the gleam of Smithfield fires,
Those cunning lessons of diplomacy
Which saved her then and now for England's sake,
He passed his youth. 'Twas when the power of Spain
Began to light the gloom, with that great glare
Of martyrdom which, while the stars endure,
Bears witness how men overcame the world,
Trod the red flames beneath their feet like flowers,
And cast aside the blackening robe of flesh,
While with a crown of joy upon their heads,
Even as into a palace, they passed through
The portals of the tomb to prove their love
Stronger at least than death: and, in those days
A Puritan, with iron in his soul,
Having in earlier manhood occupied
His business in great waters and beheld
The bloody cowls of the Inquisition pass
Before the midnight moon as he kept watch;
And having then forsworn the steely sea
To dwell at home in England with his love
At Tavistock in Devon, Edmund Drake
Began, albeit too near the Abbey walls,
To speak too staunchly for his ancient faith;
And with his young child Francis, had to flee
By night at last for shelter to the coast.
Little the boy remembered of that flight,
Pillioned behind his father, save the clang
And clatter of the hoofs on stony ground
Striking a sharp blue fire, while country tales
Of highwaymen kindled his reckless heart
As the great steed went shouldering through the night.
There Francis, laying a little sunburnt hand
On the big bolstered pistol at each side,
Dreamed with his wide grey eyes that he himself
Was riding out on some freebooting quest,
And felt himself heroic. League by league
The magic world rolled past him as they rode,
Leaving him nothing but a memory
Of his own making. Vaguely he perceived
A thousand meadows darkly streaming by
With clouds of perfume from their secret flowers,
A wayside cottage-window pointing out
A golden finger o'er the purple road;
A puff of garden roses or a waft
Of honeysuckle blown along a wood,
While overhead that silver ship, the moon,
Sailed slowly down the gulfs of glittering stars,
Till, at the last, a buffet of fresh wind
Fierce with sharp savours of the stinging brine
Against his dreaming face brought up a roar
Of mystic welcome from the Channel seas.
And there Drake paused for a moment, as a song
Stole o'er the waters from the _Marygold_
Where some musician, striking luscious chords
Of sweet-stringed music, freed his heart's desire
In symbols of the moment, which the rest,
And Doughty among them, scarce could understand.
SONG
_The moon is up: the stars are bright:
The wind is fresh and free!
We're out to seek for gold to-night
Across the silver sea!
The world was growing grey and old;
Break out the sails again!
We're out to seek a Realm of Gold
Beyond the Spanish Main._
_We're sick of all the cringing knees,
The courtly smiles and lies.
God, let Thy singing Channel breeze
Lighten our hearts and eyes!
Let love no more be bought and sold
For earthly loss or gain.
We're out to seek an Age of Gold
Beyond the Spanish Main._
_Beyond the light of far Cathay,
Beyond all mortal dreams,
Beyond the reach of night and day
Our El Dorado gleams,
Revealing--as the skies unfold--
A star without a stain,
The Glory of the Gates of Gold
Beyond the Spanish Main._
And, as the skilled musician made the words
Of momentary meaning still simply
His own eternal hope and heart's desire,
Without belief, perchance, in Drake's own quest--
To Drake's own greater mind the eternal glory
Seemed to transfigure his immediate hope.
But Doughty only heard a sweet concourse
Of sounds. They ceased. And Drake resumed his tale
Of that strange flight in boyhood to the sea.
Next, the red-curtained inn and kindly hands
Of Protestant Plymouth held his memory long;
Often in strange and distant dreams he saw
That scene which now he tenderly portrayed
To Doughty's half-ironic smiling lips,
Half-sympathetic eyes; he saw again
That small inn parlour with the homely fare
Set forth upon the table, saw the gang
Of seamen dripping from the spray come in,
Like great new thoughts to some adventurous brain.
Feeding his wide grey eyes he saw them stand
Around the crimson fire and stamp their feet
And scatter the salt drops from their big sea-boots;
And all that night he lay awake and heard
Mysterious thunderings of eternal tides
Moaning out of a cold and houseless gloom
Beyond the world, that made it seem most sweet
To slumber in a little four-walled inn
Immune from all that vastness. But at dawn
He woke, he leapt from bed, he ran and lookt,
There, through the tiny high bright casement, there,--
O, fairy vision of that small boy's face
Peeping at daybreak through the diamond pane!--
There first he saw the wondrous new-born world,
And round its princely shoulders wildly flowing,
Gemmed with a myriad clusters of the sun,
The magic azure mantle of the sea.
And, afterwards, there came those marvellous days
When, on that battleship, a disused hulk
Rotting to death in Chatham Reach, they found
Sanctuary and a dwelling-place at last.
For, Hawkins, that great ship-man, being their friend,
A Protestant, with power on Plymouth town,
Nigh half whereof he owned, made Edmund Drake
Reader of prayer to all the ships of war
That lay therein. So there the dreaming boy,
Francis, grew up in that grim nursery
Among the ropes and masts and great dumb mouths
Of idle ordnance. In that hulk he heard
Many a time his father and his friends
Over some wild-eyed troop of refugees
Thunder against the powers of Spain and Rome,
"Idolaters who defiled the House of God
In England;" and all round them, as he heard,
The clang and clatter of shipwright hammers rang,
And hour by hour upon his vision rose,
In solid oak reality, new ships,
As Ilion rose to music, ships of war,
The visible shapes and symbols of his dream,
Unconscious yet, but growing as they grew,
A wondrous incarnation, hour by hour,
Till with their towering masts they stood complete,
Embodied thoughts, in God's own dockyards built,
For Drake ere long to lead against the world.
There, as to round the tale with ringing gold,
Across the waters from the full-plumed _Swan_
The music of a _Mermaid_ roundelay--
_Our Lady of the Sea_, a Dorian theme
Tuned to the soul of England--charmed the moon.
SONG
I
Queen Venus wandered away with a cry,--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_--
For the purple wound in Adon's thigh;
_Je vous en prie_, pity me;
With a bitter farewell from sky to sky,
And a moan, a moan, from sea to sea;
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
II
The soft Ægean heard her sigh,--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_--
Heard the Spartan hills reply,
_Je vous en prie_, pity me;
Spain was aware of her drawing nigh
Foot-gilt from the blossoms of Italy;
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
III
In France they heard her voice go by,--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
--And on the May-wind droop and die,
_Je vous en prie_, pity me;
Your maidens choose their loves, but I--
White as I came from the foam-white sea,
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_--
IV
The warm red-meal-winged butterfly,--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_--
Beat on her breast in the golden rye,--
_Je vous en prie_, pity me,--
Stained her breast with a dusty dye
Red as the print of a kiss might be!
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
V
Is there no land, afar or nigh--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_--
But dreads the kiss o' the sea? Ah, why--
_Je vous en prie_, pity me!--
Why will ye cling to the loves that die?
Is earth all Adon to my plea?
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
VI
Under the warm blue summer sky,--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
With outstretched arms and a low long sigh,--
_Je vous en prie_, pity me;--
Over the Channel they saw her fly
To the white-cliffed island that crowns the sea,
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
VII
England laughed as her queen drew nigh,--
_N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
To the white-walled cottages gleaming high,
_Je vous en prie_, pity me!
They drew her in with a joyful cry
To the hearth where she sits with a babe on her knee,
She has turned her moan to a lullaby.
She is nursing a son to the kings of the sea,
_N'oserez vous, mon bel, mon bel,
N'oserez vous, mon bel ami?_
Such memories, on the plunging _Golden Hynde_,
Under the stars, Drake drew before his friend,
Clomb for a moment to that peak of vision,
That purple peak of Darien, laughing aloud
O'er those wild exploits down to Rio Grande
Which even now had made his fierce renown
Terrible to all lonely ships of Spain.
E'en now, indeed, that poet of Portugal,
Lope de Vega, filled with this new fear
Began to meditate his epic muse
Till, like a cry of panic from his lips,
He shrilled the faint _Dragontea_ forth, wherein
Drake is that Dragon of the Apocalypse,
The dread Antagonist of God and Man.
Well had it been for Doughty on that night
Had he not heard what followed; for, indeed,
When two minds clash, not often does the less
Conquer the greater; but, without one thought
Of evil, seeing they now were safe at sea,
Drake told him, only somewhat, yet too much,
Of that close conference with the Queen. And lo,
The face of Doughty blanched with a slow thought
That crept like a cold worm through all his brain,
"Thus much I knew, though secretly, before;
But here he freely tells me as his friend;
If I be false and he be what they say,
His knowledge of my knowledge will mean death."
But Drake looked round at Doughty with a smile
And said, "Forgive me now: thou art not used
To these cold nights at sea! thou tremblest, friend;
Let us go down and drink a cup of sack
To our return!" And at that kindly smile
Doughty shook off his nightmare mood, and thought,
"The yard-arm is for dogs, not gentlemen!
Even Drake would not misuse a man of birth!"
And in the cabin of the _Golden Hynde_
Revolving subtle treacheries he sat.
There with the sugared phrases of the court
Bartering beads for gold, he drew out all
The simple Devon seaman's inmost heart,
And coiled up in the soul of Francis Drake.
There in the solemn night they interchanged
Lies for sweet confidences. From one wall
The picture of Drake's love looked down on him;
And, like a bashful schoolboy's, that bronzed face
Flushed as he blurted out with brightening eyes
And quickening breath how he had seen her first,
Crowned on the village green, a Queen of May.
Her name, too, was Elizabeth, he said,
As if it proved that she, too, was a queen,
Though crowned with milk-white Devon may alone,
And queen but of one plot of meadow-sweet.
As yet, he said, he had only kissed her hand,
Smiled in her eyes and--there Drake also flinched,
Thinking, "I ne'er may see her face again."
And Doughty comforted his own dark heart
Thinking, "I need not fear so soft a soul
As this"; and yet, he wondered how the man,
Seeing his love so gripped him, none the less
Could leave her, thus to follow after dreams;
For faith to Doughty was an unknown word,
And trustfulness the property of fools.
At length they parted, each to his own couch,
Doughty with half a chuckle, Francis Drake
With one old-fashioned richly grateful prayer
Blessing all those he loved, as he had learnt
Beside his mother's knee in Devon days.
So all night long they sailed; but when a rift
Of orchard crimson broke the yellowing gloom
And barred the closely clouded East with dawn,
Behold, a giant galleon, overhead,
Lifting its huge black shining sides on high,
Loomed like some misty monster of the deep:
And, sullenly rolling out great gorgeous folds,
Over her rumbled like a thunder-cloud
The heavy flag of Spain. The splendid poop,
Mistily lustrous as a dragon's hoard
Seen in some magic cave-mouth o'er the sea
Through shimmering April sunlight after rain,
Blazed to the morning; and her port-holes grinned
With row on row of cannon. There at once
One sharp shrill whistle sounded, and those five
Small ships, mere minnows clinging to the flanks
Of that Leviathan, unseen, unheard,
Undreamt of, grappled her. She seemed asleep,
Swinging at ease with great half-slackened sails,
Majestically careless of the dawn.
There in the very native seas of Spain,
There with the yeast and foam of her proud cliffs,
Her own blue coasts, in sight across the waves,
Up her Titanic sides without a sound
The naked-footed British seamen swarmed
With knives between their teeth: then on her decks
They dropped like panthers, and the softly fierce
Black-bearded watch, of Spaniards, all amazed,
Rubbing their eyes as if at a wild dream,
Upraised a sudden shout, _El Draque! El Draque!_
And flashed their weapons out, but all too late;
For, ere their sleeping comrades reached the deck,
The little watch, out-numbered and out-matched,
Lay bound, and o'er the hatches everywhere
The points of naked cutlasses on guard
Gleamed, and without a struggle those below
Gave up their arms, their poignards jewelled thick
With rubies, and their blades of Spanish steel.
Then onward o'er the great grey gleaming sea
They swept with their rich booty, night and day.
Five other prizes, one for every ship,
Out of the seas of Spain they suddenly caught
And carried with them, laughing as they went--
"Now, now indeed the Rubicon is crossed;
Now have we singed the eyelids and the beard
Of Spain; now have we roused the hornet's nest;
Now shall we sail against a world in arms;
Now we have nought between us and black death
But our own hands, five ships, and three score guns."
So laughed they, plunging through the bay of storms,
Biscay, and past Gibraltar, not yet clothed
With British thunder, though, as one might dream,
Gazing in dim prophetic grandeur out
Across the waves while that small fleet went by,
Or watching them with love's most wistful fear
As they plunged Southward to the lonely coasts
Of Africa, till right in front up-soared,
Tremendous over ocean, Teneriffe,
Cloud-robed, but crowned with colours of the dawn.
Already those two traitors were at work,
Doughty and his false brother, among the crews,
Who knew not yet the vastness of their quest,
Nor dreamed of aught beyond the accustomed world;
For Drake had kept it secret, and the thoughts
Of some that he had shipped before the mast
Set sail scarce farther than for Mogadore
In West Morocco, or at the utmost mark
For northern Egypt, by the midnight woods
And crystal palace roofed with chrysoprase
Where Prester John had reigned five hundred years,
And Sydon, river of jewels, through the dark
Enchanted gorges rolled its rays along!
Some thought of Rio Grande; but scarce to ten
The true intent was known; while to divert
The rest from care the skilled musicians played.
But those two Doughtys cunningly devised
By chance-dropt words to breathe a hint abroad;
And through the foc'sles crept a grisly fear
Of things that lay beyond the bourne of earth,
Till even those hardy seamen almost quailed;
And now, at any whisper, they might turn
With terror in their eyes. They might refuse
To sail into that fabled burning Void
Or brave that _primum mobile_ which drew
O'er-daring ships into the jaws of hell
Beyond the Pole Antarticke, where the sea
Rushed down through fiery mountains, and no sail
Could e'er return against its roaring stream.
Now down the coast of Barbary they cruised
Till Christmas Eve embraced them in the heart
Of summer. In a bay of mellow calm
They moored, and as the fragrant twilight brought
The stars, the sound of song and dance arose;
And down the shores in stealthy silence crept,
Out of the massy forest's emerald gloom,
The naked, dark-limbed children of the night,
Unseen, to gaze upon the floating glare
Of revelry; unheard, to hear that strange
New music of the gods, where o'er the soft
Ripple and wash of the lanthorn-crimsoned tide
Will Harvest's voice above the chorus rang.
SONG
_In Devonshire, now, the Christmas chime
Is carolling over the lea;
And the sexton shovels away the snow
From the old church porch, maybe;
And the waifs with their lanthorns and noses a-glow
Come round for their Christmas fee;
But, as in old England it's Christmas-time,
Why, so is it here at sea,
My lads,
Why, so is it here at sea!_
_When the ship comes home, from turret to poop
Filled full with Spanish gold,
There'll be many a country dance and joke,
And many a tale to be told;
Every old woman shall have a red cloak
To fend her against the cold;
And every old man shall have a big round stoup
Of jolly good ale and old,
My lads,
Jolly good ale and old!_
But on the morrow came a prosperous wind
Whereof they took advantage, and shook out
The flashing sails, and held their Christmas feast
Upon the swirling ridges of the sea:
And, sweeping Southward with full many a rouse
And shout of laughter, at the fall of day,
While the black prows drove, leapt, and plunged, and ploughed
Through the broad dazzle of sunset-coloured tides,
Outside the cabin of the _Golden Hynde_,
Where Drake and his chief captains dined in state,
The skilled musicians made a great new song.
SONG
I
_Happy by the hearth sit the lasses and the lads, now,
Roasting of their chestnuts, toasting of their toes!
When the door is opened to a blithe new-comer,
Stamping like a ploughman to shuffle off the snows;
Rosy flower-like faces through the soft red firelight
Float as if to greet us, far away at sea,
Sigh as they remember, and turn the sigh to laughter,
Kiss beneath the mistletoe and wonder at their glee.
With their "heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly!"
Christmas-time is kissing-time,
Away with melancholy!_
II
_Ah, the Yule of England, the happy Yule of England,
Yule of berried holly and the merry mistletoe;
The boar's head, the brown ale, the blue snapdragon,
Yule of groaning tables and the crimson log aglow!
Yule, the golden bugle to the scattered old companions,
Ringing as with laughter, shining as through tears!
Loved of little children, oh guard the holy Yuletide.
Guard it, men of England, for the child beyond the years.
With its "heigh ho, the holly!"
Away with melancholy!
Christmas-time is kissing-time,
"This life is most jolly!_"
Now to the Fortunate Islands of old time
They came, and found no glory as of old
Encircling them, no red ineffable calm
Of sunset round crowned faces pale with bliss
Like evening stars. Rugged and desolate
Those isles were when they neared them, though afar
They beautifully smouldered in the sun
Like dusky purple jewels fringed and frayed
With silver foam across that ancient sea.
Of wonder. On the largest of the seven
Drake landed Doughty with his musketeers
To exercise their weapons and to seek
Supplies among the matted uncouth huts
Which, as the ships drew round each ragged cliff,
Crept like remembered misery into sight;
Oh, like the strange dull waking from a dream
They blotted out the rosy courts and fair
Imagined marble thresholds of the King
Achilles and the heroes that were gone.
But Drake cared nought for these things. Such a heart
He had, to make each utmost ancient bourne
Of man's imagination but a point
Of new departure for his Golden Dream.
But Doughty with his men ashore, alone,
Among the sparse wind-bitten groves of palm,
Kindled their fears of all they must endure
On that immense adventure. Nay, sometimes
He hinted of a voyage far beyond
All history and fable, far beyond
Even that Void whence only two returned,--
Columbus, with his men in mutiny;
Magellan, who could only hound his crew
Onward by threats of death, until they turned
In horror from the Threat that lay before,
Preferring to be hanged as mutineers
Rather than venture farther. Nor indeed
Did even Magellan at the last return;
But, with all hell around him, in the clutch
Of devils died upon some savage isle
By poisonous black enchantment. Not in vain
Were Doughty's words on that volcanic shore
Among the stunted dark acacia trees,
Whose heads, all bent one way by the trade-wind,
Pointed North-east by North, South-west by West
Ambiguous sibyls that with wizened arms
Mysteriously declared a twofold path,
Homeward or onward. But aboard the ships,
Among the hardier seamen, old Tom Moone,
With one or two stout comrades, overbore
All doubts and questionings with blither tales
Of how they sailed to Darien and heard
Nightingales in November all night long
As down a coast like Paradise they cruised
Through seas of lasting summer, Eden isles,
Where birds like rainbows, butterflies like gems,
And flowers like coloured fires o'er fairy creeks
Floated and flashed beneath the shadowy palms;
While ever and anon a bark canoe
With naked Indian maidens flower-festooned
Put out from shadowy coves, laden with fruit
Ambrosial o'er the silken shimmering sea.
And once a troop of nut-brown maidens came--
So said Tom Moone, a twinkle in his eye--
Swimming to meet them through the warm blue waves
And wantoned through the water, like those nymphs
Which one green April at the Mermaid Inn
Should hear Kit Marlowe mightily portray,
Among his boon companions, in a song
Of Love that swam the sparkling Hellespont
Upheld by nymphs, not lovelier than these,--
Though whiter yet not lovelier than these--
For those like flowers, but these like rounded fruit
Rosily ripening through the clear tides tossed
From nut-brown breast and arm all round the ship
The thousand-coloured spray. Shapely of limb
They were; but as they laid their small brown hands
Upon the ropes we cast them, Captain Drake
Suddenly thundered at them and bade them pack
For a troop of naughty wenches! At that tale
A tempest of fierce laughter rolled around
The foc'sle; but one boy from London town,
A pale-faced prentice, run-away to sea,
Asking why Drake had bidden them pack so soon,
Tom Moone turned to him with his deep-sea growl,
"Because our Captain is no pink-eyed boy
Nor soft-limbed Spaniard, but a staunch-souled Man,
Full-blooded; nerved like iron; with a girl
He loves at home in Devon; and a mind
For ever bent upon some mighty goal,
I know not what--but 'tis enough for me
To know my Captain knows." And then he told
How sometimes o'er the gorgeous forest gloom
Some marble city, rich, mysterious, white,
An ancient treasure-house of Aztec kings,
Or palace of forgotten Incas gleamed;
And in their dim rich lofty cellars gold,
Beyond all wildest dreams, great bars of gold,
Like pillars, tossed in mighty chaos, gold
And precious stones, agate and emerald,
Diamond, sapphire, ruby, and sardonyx.
So said he, as they waited the return
Of Doughty, resting in the foc'sle gloom,
Or idly couched about the sun-swept decks
On sails or coils of rope, while overhead
Some boy would climb the rigging and look out,
Arching his hand to see if Doughty came.
But when he came, he came with a strange face
Of feigned despair; and with a stammering tongue
He vowed he could not find those poor supplies
Which Drake himself in other days had found
Upon that self-same island. But, perchance,
This was a barren year, he said. And Drake
Looked at him, suddenly, and at the musketeers.
Their eyes were strained; their faces wore a cloud.
That night he said no more; but on the morn,
Mistrusting nothing, Drake with subtle sense
Of weather-wisdom, through that little fleet
Distributed his crews anew. And all
The prisoners and the prizes at those isles
They left behind them, taking what they would
From out their carven cabins,--glimmering silks,
Chiselled Toledo blades, and broad doubloons.
And lo, as they weighed anchor, far away
Behind them on the blue horizon line
It seemed a city of towering masts arose;
And from the crow's nest of the _Golden Hynde_
A seaman cried, "By God; the hunt is up!"
And like a tide of triumph through their veins
The red rejoicing blood began to race
As there they saw the avenging ships of Spain,
Eight mighty galleons, nosing out their trail.
And Drake growled, "Oh, my lads of Bideford,
It cuts my heart to show the hounds our heels;
But we must not emperil our great quest!
Such fights as that must wait--as our reward
When we return. Yet I will not put on
One stitch of sail. So, lest they are not too slow
To catch us, clear the decks. God, I would like
To fight them!" So the little fleet advanced
With decks all cleared and shotted guns and men
Bare-armed beside them, hungering to be caught,
And quite distracted from their former doubts;
For danger, in that kind, they never feared.
But soon the heavy Spaniards dropped behind;
And not in vain had Thomas Doughty sown
The seeds of doubt; for many a brow grew black
With sullen-seeming care that erst was gay.
But happily and in good time there came,
Not from behind them now, but right in front,
On the first sun-down of their quest renewed,
Just as the sea grew dark around their ships,
A chance that loosed heart-gnawing doubt in deeds.
For through a mighty zone of golden haze
Blotting the purple of the gathering night
A galleon like a floating mountain moved
To meet them, clad with sunset and with dreams.
Her masts and spars immense in jewelled mist
Shimmered: her rigging, like an emerald web
Of golden spiders, tangled half the stars!
Embodied sunset, dragging the soft sky
O'er dazzled ocean, through the night she drew
Out of the unknown lands; and round a prow
That jutted like a moving promontory
Over a cloven wilderness of foam,
Upon a lofty blazoned scroll her name
_San Salvador_ challenged obsequious isles
Where'er she rode; who kneeling like dark slaves
Before some great Sultàn must lavish forth
From golden cornucopias, East and West,
Red streams of rubies, cataracts of pearl.
But, at a signal from their admiral, all
Those five small ships lay silent in the gloom
Which, just as if some god were on their side,
Covered them in the dark troughs of the waves,
Letting her pass to leeward. On she came,
Blazing with lights, a City of the Sea,
Belted with crowding towers and clouds of sail,
And round her bows a long-drawn thunder rolled
Splendid with foam; but ere she passed them by
Drake gave the word, and with one crimson flash
Two hundred yards of black and hidden sea
Leaped into sight between them as the roar
Of twenty British cannon shattered the night.
Then after her they drove, like black sea-wolves
Behind some royal high-branched stag of ten,
Hanging upon those bleeding foam-flecked flanks,
Leaping, snarling, worrying, as they went
In full flight down the wind; for those light ships
Much speedier than their huge antagonist,
Keeping to windward, worked their will with her.
In vain she burnt wild lights and strove to scan
The darkening deep. Her musketeers in vain
Provoked the crackling night with random fires:
In vain her broadside bellowings burst at large
As if the Gates of Erebus unrolled.
For ever and anon the deep-sea gloom
From some new quarter, like a dragon's mouth
Opened and belched forth crimson flames and tore
Her sides as if with iron claws unseen;
Till, all at once, rough voices close at hand
Out of the darkness thundered, "Grapple her!"
And, falling on their knees, the Spaniards knew
The Dragon of that red Apocalypse.
There with one awful cry, _El Draque! El Draque_!
They cast their weapons from them; for the moon
Rose, eastward, and, against her rising, black
Over the bloody bulwarks, Francis Drake,
Grasping the great hilt of his naked sword,
Towered for a moment to their startled eyes
Through all the zenith like the King of Hell.
Then he leaped down upon their shining decks,
And after him swarmed and towered and leapt in haste
A brawny band of three score Englishmen,
Gigantic as they loomed against the sky
And risen, it seemed, by miracle from the sea.
So small were those five ships below the walls
Of that huge floating mountain. Royally
Drake, from the swart commander's trembling hands
Took the surrendered sword, and bade his men
Gather the fallen weapons on an heap,
And placed a guard about them, while the moon
Silvering the rolling seas for many a mile
Glanced on the huddled Spaniards' rich attire,
As like one picture of despair they grouped
Under the splintered main-mast's creaking shrouds,
And the great swinging shadows of the sails
Mysteriously swept the gleaming decks;
Where many a butt of useless cannon gloomed
Along the accoutred bulwarks or upturned,
As the ship wallowed in the heaving deep,
Dumb mouths of empty menace to the stars.
Then Drake appointed Doughty, with a guard,
To sail the prize on to the next dim isle
Where they might leave her, taking aught they would
From out her carven cabins and rich holds.
And Doughty's heart leaped in him as he thought,
"I have my chance at last"; but Drake, who still
Trusted the man, made surety doubly sure,
And in his wary weather-wisdom sent
--Even as a breathing type of friendship, sent--
His brother, Thomas Drake, aboard the prize;
But set his brother, his own flesh and blood,
Beneath the man, as if to say, "I give
My loyal friend dominion over me."
So courteously he dealt with him; but he,
Seeing his chance once more slipping away,
Raged inwardly and, from his own false heart
Imputing his own evil, he contrived
A cunning charge that night; and when they came
Next day, at noon, upon the destined isle,
He suddenly spat the secret venom forth,
With such fierce wrath in his defeated soul
That he himself almost believed the charge.
For when Drake stepped on the _San Salvador_
To order all things duly about the prize,
What booty they must keep and what let go,
Doughty received him with a blustering voice
Of red mock-righteous wrath, "Is this the way
Englishmen play the pirate, Francis Drake?
While thou wast dreaming of thy hero's crown--
God save the mark!--thy brother, nay, thy spy,
Must play the common pilferer, must convert
The cargo to his uses, rob us all
Of what we risked our necks to win: he wears
The ransom of an emperor round his throat
That might enrich us all. Who saw him wear
That chain of rubies ere last night?"
And Drake,
"Answer him, brother;" and his brother smiled
And answered, "Nay, I never wore this chain
Before last night; but Doughty knows, indeed,
For he was with me--and none else was there
But Doughty--'tis my word against his word,
That close on midnight we were summoned down
To an English seaman who lay dying below
Unknown to any of us, a prisoner
In chains, that had been captured none knew where,
For all his mind was far from Darien,
And wandering evermore through Devon lanes
At home; whom we released; and from his waist
He took this hidden chain and gave it me,
Begging me that if ever I returned
To Bideford in Devon I would go
With whatsoever wealth it might produce
To his old mother who, with wrinkled hands
In some small white-washed cottage o'er the sea,
Where wall-flowers bloom in April, even now
Is turning pages of the well-worn Book
And praying for her son's return, nor knows
That he lies cold upon the heaving main.
But this he asked; and this in all good faith
I swore to do; and even now he died,
And hurrying hither from his side I clasped
His chain of rubies round my neck awhile,
In full sight of the sun. I have no more
To say." Then up spoke Hatton's trumpeter:
"But I have more to say. Last night I saw
Doughty, but not in full sight of the sun,
Nor once, nor twice, but three times at the least,
Carrying chains of gold, clusters of gems,
And whatsoever wealth he could convey
Into his cabin and smuggle in smallest space."
"Nay," Doughty stammered, mixing sneer and lie,
Yet bolstering up his courage with the thought
That being what courtiers called a gentleman
He ranked above the rude sea-discipline,
"Nay, they were free gifts from the Spanish crew
Because I treated them with courtesy."
Then bluff Will Harvest, "That perchance were true,
For he hath been close closeted for hours
With their chief officers, drinking their health
In our own war-bought wine, while down below
Their captured English seaman groaned his last."
Then Drake, whose utter silence, with a sense
Of infinite power and justice, ruled their hearts,
Suddenly thundered--and the traitor blanched
And quailed before him. "This my flesh and blood
I placed beneath thee as my dearer self!
But thou, in trampling on him, shalt not say
I charged thy brother. Nay, thou chargest me!
Against me only hast thou stirred this strife;
And now, by God, shalt thou learn, once for all,
That I, thy captain for this voyage, hold
The supreme power of judgment in my hands.
Get thee aboard my flagship! When I come
I shall have more to say to thee; but thou,
My brother, take this galleon in thy charge;
For, as I see, she holdeth all the stores
Which Doughty failed to find. She shall return
With us to that New World from which she came.
But now let these our prisoners all embark
In yonder pinnace; let them all go free.
I care not to be cumbered on my way
Through dead Magellan's unattempted dream
With chains and prisoners. In that Golden World
Which means much more to me than I can speak,
Much more, much more than I can speak or breathe,
Being, behind whatever name it bears--
Earthly Paradise, Island of the Saints,
Cathay, or Zipangu, or Hy Brasil--
The eternal symbol of my soul's desire,
A sacred country shining on the sea,
That Vision without which, the wise king said,
A people perishes; in that place of hope,
That Tirn'an Og, that land of lasting youth,
Where whosoever sails with me shall drink
Fountains of immortality and dwell
Beyond the fear of death for evermore,
There shall we see the dust of battle dance
Everywhere in the sunbeam of God's peace!
Oh, in the new Atlantis of my soul
There are no captives: there the wind blows free;
And, as in sleep, I have heard the marching song
Of mighty peoples rising in the West,
Wonderful cities that shall set their foot
Upon the throat of all old tyrannies;
And on the West wind I have heard a cry,
The shoreless cry of the prophetic sea
Heralding through that golden wilderness
The Soul whose path our task is to make straight,
Freedom, the last great Saviour of mankind.
I know not what I know: these are wild words,
Which, as the sun draws out earth's morning mists
Over dim fields where careless cattle sleep,
Some visionary Light, unknown, afar,
Draws from my darkling soul. Why should we drag
Thither this Old-World weight of utter gloom,
Or with the ballast of these heavy hearts
Make sail in sorrow for Pacific Seas?
Let us leave chains and prisoners to Spain;
But set these free to make their own way home!"
So said he, groping blindly towards the truth,
And heavy with the treason of his friend.
His face was like a king's face as he spake,
For sorrows that strike deep reveal the deep;
And through the gateways of a raggèd wound
Sometimes a god will drive his chariot wheels
From some deep heaven within the hearts of men.
Nevertheless, the immediate seamen there
Knowing how great a ransom they might ask
For some among their prisoners, men of wealth
And high degree, scarce liked to free them thus;
And only saw in Drake's conflicting moods
The moment's whim. "For little will he care,"
They muttered, "when we reach those fabled shores,
Whether his cannon break their golden peace."
Yet to his face they murmured not at all;
Because his eyes compelled them like a law.
So there they freed the prisoners and set sail
Across the earth-shaking shoulders of the broad
Atlantic, and the great grey slumbrous waves
Triumphantly swelled up to meet the keels.