And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left

to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord,

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,

And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow. "Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard, tell us now,
For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.'
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe, With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick

below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left

were seen,

And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and laugh'd,

Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft

Running on and on, till delay'd

By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,

And upshadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,

Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.

And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud

Whence the thunderbolt will fall

Long and loud,

Four galleons drew away

From the Spanish fleet that day,

And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay, And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,

But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built gal

leons came,

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;

Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.

For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?

For he said "Fight on! fight on!"

Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;

And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night

was gone,

With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,

But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead, And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head, And he said "Fight on! fight on!"

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 fear'd that we still could sting,

So they watch'd 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 maim'd 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 Spaniards 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 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 earthquake

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 shot-shatter'd navy of Spain,

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island

crags

To be lost evermore in the main.

MAGDALENA; OR, THE SPANISH DUEL

BY J. F. WALLER

Near the city of Sevilla,

Years and years ago—

Dwelt a lady in a villa

Years and years ago;—

And her hair was black as night,
And her eyes were starry bright;
Olives on her brow were blooming,
Roses red her lips perfuming,