XIII.

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.

XIV.

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 honour down into the

deep,

And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien

crew,

And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her

own;

When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd 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 shotshatter'd navy of Spain,

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags

To be lost evermore in the main.

THE SISTERS.

THEY have left the doors ajar; and by their clash, And prelude on the keys, I know the song,

Their favourite-which I call 'The Tables Turned.' Evelyn begins it 'O diviner Air.'

EVELYN.

O diviner Air,

Thro' the heat, the drowth, the dust, the glare,

Far from out the west in shadowing showers,

Over all the meadow baked and bare,

Making fresh and fair

All the bowers and the flowers,

Fainting flowers, faded bowers,

Over all this weary world of ours,

Breathe, diviner Air!

A sweet voice that-you scarce could better that.

Now follows Edith echoing Evelyn.

EDITH.

O diviner light,

Thro' the cloud that roofs our noon with night,
Thro' the blotting mist, the blinding showers,
Far from out a sky for ever bright,

Over all the woodland's flooded bowers,
Over all the meadow's drowning flowers,
Over all this ruin'd world of ours,
Break, diviner light!

Marvellously like, their voices-and themselves!
Tho' one is somewhat deeper than the other,
As one is somewhat graver than the other—
Edith than Evelyn. Your good Uncle, whom
You count the father of your fortune, longs
For this alliance: let me ask you then,

Which voice most takes you? for I do not doubt

Being a watchful parent, you are taken

With one or other: tho' sometimes I fear

You may be flickering, fluttering in a doubt

Between the two—which must not be—which might

Be death to one: they both are beautiful:

Evelyn is gayer, wittier, prettier, says

The common voice, if one may trust it: she?
No! but the paler and the graver, Edith.

Woo her and gain her then no wavering, boy!

The graver is perhaps the one for you
Who jest and laugh so easily and so well.
For love will go by contrast, as by likes.

No sisters ever prized each other more. Not so their mother and her sister loved More passionately still.

But that my best

And oldest friend, your Uncle, wishes it,
And that I know you worthy everyway
To be my son, I might, perchance, be loath
To part them, or part from them: and yet one
Should marry, or all the broad lands in your view
From this bay window-which our house has held
Three hundred years-will pass collaterally.

My father with a child on either knee, A hand upon the head of either child, Smoothing their locks, as golden as his own Were silver, 'get them wedded' would he say. And once my prattling Edith ask'd him 'why?' Ay, why? said he, 'for why should I go lame?' Then told them of his wars, and of his wound. For see-this wine-the grape from whence it flow'd Was blackening on the slopes of Portugal,

When that brave soldier, down the terrible ridge

Plunged in the last fierce charge at Waterloo,