Ii

And lightly the proud hearts prattle, And lightly the dawn draws nigh, The dawn of the doom of the battle When these shall falter and fly; No day more great in the roll of fate filled ever with fire the sky.

To fightward they go as to feastward, And the tempest of ships that drive Sets eastward ever and eastward, Till closer they strain and strive; And the shots that rain on the hulls of Spain are as thunders afire and alive.

And about them the blithe sea smiles And flashes to windward and lee Round capes and headlands and isles That heed not if war there be; Round Sark, round Wight, green jewels of light in the ring of the golden sea.

But the men that within them abide Are stout of spirit and stark As rocks that repel the tide, As day that repels the dark; And the light bequeathed from their swords unsheathed shines lineal on Wight and on Sark.

And eastward the storm sets ever, The storm of the sails that strain And follow and close and sever And lose and return and gain; And English thunder divides in sunder the holds of the ships of Spain.

Southward to Calais, appalled And astonished, the vast fleet veers; And the skies are shrouded and palled, But the moonless midnight hears And sees how swift on them drive and drift strange flames that the darkness fears.

They fly through the night from shoreward, Heart-stricken till morning break, And ever to scourge them forward Drives down on them England's Drake, And hurls them in as they hurtle and spin and stagger, with storm to wake.