StoryTitle("caps", "The Revenge") ?>
SubTitle("caps", "A Ballad of the Fleet") ?>
(1807-92) "The Revenge" finds a welcome here because it is
a favourite with teachers of elocution and their audiences. It teaches
us to hold life cheap when the nation's safety is at stake.
PoemStart() ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying from away:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: \"'Fore God, I am no coward;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?\"", "") ?>
PagePoem(247, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: \"I know you are no coward;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "You fly them for a moment, to fight with them again.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So Lord Howard passed away with five ships of war that day,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Very carefully and slow,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Men of Bideford in Devon,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And we laid them on the ballast down below;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For we brought them all aboard,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they blest him in their pain that they were not left to Spain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he sail'd away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"Shall we fight or shall we fly?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Good Sir Richard, tell us now,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For to fight is but to die!", "") ?>
PagePoem(248, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And Sir Richard said again: \"We be all good Englishmen.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the little Revenge ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and laugh'd,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Running on and on, till delay'd", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "By their mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And while now the great San Philip hung above us like a cloud", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Whence the thunderbolt will fall", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Long and loud.", "") ?>
PagePoem(249, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Four galleons drew away", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "From the Spanish fleet that day,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the battle-thunder broke from them all.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself and went,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Having that within her womb that had left her ill content;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When he leaps from the water to the land.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battle-thunder and flame;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us no more—", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?", "") ?>
PagePoem(250, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "For he said, \"Fight on! fight on!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Tho' his vessel was all but a wreck;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And it chanced that, when half of the short summer night was gone,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With a grisly wound to be drest he had left the deck,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly dead,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he said, \"Fight on! Fight on!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But they dared not touch us again, for they fear'd that we still could sting,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "So they watched what the end would be.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And we had not fought them in vain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But in perilous plight were we,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And half of the rest of us maim'd for life", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the sick men down in the hold were most of them stark and cold,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But Sir Richard cried in his English pride:", "") ?>
PagePoem(251, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "As may never be fought again!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We have won great glory, my men!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And a day less or more", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "At sea or ashore,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We die—does it matter when?", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain!", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the gunner said. \"Ay, ay,\" but the seamen made reply:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"We have children, we have wives,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the Lord hath spared our lives.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "We shall live to fight again, and to strike another blow.\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the foe.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "\"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do.", "") ?>
PagePoem(252, "L0", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!\"", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And he fell upon their decks, and he died.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant and true,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "That he dared her with one little ship and his English few.", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "But they sank his body with honour down into the deep,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her own;", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd awoke from sleep,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the water began to heave and the weather to moan,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earthquake grew,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "Till it smote on their hulls, and their sails, and their masts, and their flags,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shatter'd navy of Spain,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags,", "") ?>
PoemLine("L0", "", "To be lost evermore in the main.", "") ?>
PoemAttribution("100", SmallCapsText("Alfred Tennyson.")) ?>
PoemEnd() ?>