BOOK IX

Now like a white-cliffed fortress England shone

Amid the mirk of chaos; for the huge

Empire of Spain was but the dusky van

Of that dread night beyond all nights and days,

Night of the last corruption of a world

Fast-bound in misery and iron, with chains

Of priest and king and feudal servitude,

Night of the fettered flesh and ravaged soul,

Night of anarchic chaos, darkening the deep,

Swallowing up cities, kingdoms, empires, gods,

With vaster gloom approaching, till the sun

Of love was blackened, the moon of faith was blood.

All round our England, our small struggling star,

Fortress of freedom, rock o’ the world's desire,

Bearing at last the hope of all mankind,

The thickening darkness surged, and close at hand

Those first fierce cloudy fringes of the storm,

The Armada sails, gathered their might; and Spain

Crouched close behind them with her screaming fires

And steaming shambles, Spain, the hell-hag, crouched,

Still grasping with red hand the cross of Christ

By its great hilt, pointing it like a dagger,

Spear-head of the ultimate darkness, at the throat

Of England. Under Philip's feet at last

Writhed all the Protestant Netherlands, dim coasts

Right over against us, whence his panoplies

Might suddenly whelm our isle. But all night long,

On many a mountain, many a guardian height,

From Beachy Head to Skiddaw, little groups

Of seamen, torch and battle-lanthorn nigh,

Watched by the brooding unlit beacons, piled

Of sun-dried gorse, funereal peat, rough logs,

Reeking with oil,‘ mid sharp scents of the sea,

Waste trampled grass and heather and close-cropped thyme,

High o'er the thundering coast, among whose rocks

Far, far below, the pacing coastguards gazed

Steadfastly seaward through the loaded dusk.

And through that deepening gloom when, as it seemed,

All England held her breath in one grim doubt,

Swift rumours flashed from North to South as runs

The lightning round a silent thunder-cloud;

And there were muttering crowds in the London streets,

And hurrying feet in the brooding Eastern ports.

All night, dark inns, gathering the country-side,

Reddened with clashing auguries of war.

All night, in the ships of Plymouth Sound, the soul

Of Francis Drake was England, and all night

Her singing seamen by the silver quays

Polished their guns and waited for the dawn.

But hour by hour that night grew deeper. Spain

Watched, cloud by cloud, her huge Armadas grow,

Watched, tower by tower, and zone by zone, her fleets

Grapple the sky with a hundred hands and drag

Whole sea-horizons into her menacing ranks,

Joining her powers to the fierce night, while Philip

Still strove, with many a crafty word, to lull

The fears of Gloriana, till his plots

Were ripe, his armaments complete; and still

Great Gloriana took her woman's way,

Preferring ever tortuous intrigue

To battle, since the stakes had grown so great;

Now, more than ever, hoping against hope

To find some subtler means of victory;

Yet not without swift impulses to strike,

Swiftly recalled. Blind, yet not blind, she smiled

On Mary of Scotland waiting for her throne,

A throne with many a strange dark tremor thrilled

Now as the rumoured murderous mines below

Converged towards it, mine and countermine,

Till the live earth was honeycombed with death.

Still with her agate smile, still she delayed,

Holding her pirate admiral in the leash

Till Walsingham, nay, even the hunchback Burleigh,

That crafty king of statesmen, seeing at last

The inevitable thunder-crash at hand.

Grew heart-sick with delay and ached to shatter

The tense tremendous hush that seemed to oppress

All hearts, compress all brows, load the broad night

With more than mortal menace.

Only once

The night was traversed with one lightning flash,

One rapier stroke from England, at the heart

Of Spain, as swiftly parried, yet no less

A fiery challenge; for Philip's hate and scorn

Growing with his Armada's growth, he lured

With promises of just and friendly trade

A fleet of English corn-ships to relieve

His famine-stricken coast. There as they lay

Within his ports he seized them, one and all,

To fill the Armada's maw.

Whereat the Queen,

Passive so long, summoned great Walsingham,

And, still averse from open war, despite

The battle-hunger burning in his eyes,

With one strange swift sharp agate smile she hissed,

“Unchain El Draque!”

A lightning flash indeed

Was this; for he whose little Golden Hynde

With scarce a score of seamen late had scourged

The Spanish Main; he whose piratic neck

Scarcely the Queen's most wily statecraft saved

From Spain's revenge: he, privateer to the eyes

Of Spain, but England to all English hearts,

Gathered together, in all good jollity,

All help and furtherance himself could wish,

Before that moon was out, a pirate fleet

Whereof the like old ocean had not seen —

Eighteen swift cruisers, two great battleships,

With pinnaces and store-ships and a force

Of nigh three thousand men, wherewith to singe

The beard o’ the King of Spain.

By night they gathered

In marvellous wind-whipt inns nigh Plymouth Sound,

Not secretly as, ere the Golden Hynde

Burst thro’ the West, that small adventurous crew

Gathered beside the Thames, tossing the phrase

“Pieces of eight” from mouth to mouth, and singing

Great songs of the rich Indies, and those tall

Enchanted galleons, red with blood and gold,

Superb with rubies, glorious as clouds,

Clouds in the sun, with mighty press of sail

Dragging the sunset out of the unknown world,

And staining all the grey old seas of Time

With rich romance; but these, though privateers,

Or secret knights on Gloriana's quest,

Recked not if round the glowing magic door

Of every inn the townsfolk grouped to hear

The storm-scarred seamen toasting Francis Drake,

Nor heeded what blithe urchin faces pressed

On each red-curtained magic casement, bright

With wild reflection of the fires within,

The fires, the glasses, and the singing lips

Lifting defiance to the powers of Spain.