BOOK II

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.