lying in treacherous rank;
  She turned but a yard too short, a muffled roar,
    A mountainous wave, and she rolled, righted, and sank.

{39}

  Over the manhole, up in the iron-clad tower,
    Pilot and Captain met as they turned to fly:
  The hundredth part of a moment seemed an hour,
    For one could pass to be saved, and one must die.

  They stood like men in a dream: Craven spoke,
    Spoke as he lived and fought, with a Captain's pride,
  "After you, Pilot:" the pilot woke,
    Down the ladder he went, and Craven died.

  All men praise the deed and the manner, but we—
    We set it apart from the pride that stoops to the proud,
  The strength that is supple to serve the strong and free,
    The grace of the empty hands and promises loud:

  Sidney thirsting a humbler need to slake,
    Nelson waiting his turn for the surgeon's hand,
  Lucas crushed with chains for a comrade's sake,
    Outram coveting right before command,

  These were paladins, these were Craven's peers,
    These with him shall be crowned in story and song,
  Crowned with the glitter of steel and the glimmer of tears,
    Princes of courtesy, merciful, proud and strong.

{40}

Messmates

  He gave us all a good-bye cheerily
    At the first dawn of day;
  We dropped him down the side full drearily
    When the light died away.
  It's a dead dark watch that he's a-keeping there,
  And a long, long night that lags a-creeping there,
  Where the Trades and the tides roll over him
    And the great ships go by.

  He's there alone with green seas rocking him
    For a thousand miles round;
  He's there alone with dumb things mocking him,
    And we're homeward bound.
  It's a long, lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
  And a dead cold night that lags a-creeping there,
  While the months and the years roll over him
    And the great ships go by.

  I wonder if the tramps come near enough
    As they thrash to and fro,
  And the battle-ships' bells ring clear enough
    To be heard down below;

{41}

  If through all the lone watch that he's a-keeping there,
  And the long, cold night that lags a-creeping there,
  The voices of the sailor-men shall comfort him
    When the great ships go by.

{42}

The Death of Admiral Blake

(AUGUST 7TH, 1657)

  Laden with spoil of the South, fulfilled with the glory
        of achievement,
    And freshly crowned with never-dying fame,
  Sweeping by shores where the names are the names of the
        victories of England,
    Across the Bay the squadron homeward came.

  Proudly they came, but their pride was the pomp of a
        funeral at midnight,
    When dreader yet the lonely morrow looms;
  Few are the words that are spoken, and faces are gaunt
        beneath the torchlight
    That does but darken more the nodding plumes.

  Low on the field of his fame, past hope lay the Admiral
        triumphant,
    And fain to rest him after all his pain;
  Yet for the love that he bore to his own land, ever
        unforgotten,
    He prayed to see the western hills again.

{43}

  Fainter than stars in a sky long gray with the coming of
        the daybreak,
    Or sounds of night that fade when night is done,
  So in the death-dawn faded the splendour and loud
        renown of warfare,
    And life of all its longings kept but one.

  "Oh! to be there for an hour when the shade draws in
        beside the hedgerows,
    And falling apples wake the drowsy noon:
  Oh! for the hour when the elms grow sombre and
        human in the twilight,
    And gardens dream beneath the rising moon.

  "Only to look once more on the land of the memories of childhood,
    Forgetting weary winds and barren foam:
  Only to bid farewell to the combe and the orchard and
        the moorland,
    And sleep at last among the fields of home!"

  So he was silently praying, till now, when his strength
        was ebbing faster,
    The Lizard lay before them faintly blue;
  Now on the gleaming horizon the white cliffs laughed
        along the coast-line,
    And now the forelands took the shapes they knew.

{44}

  There lay the Sound and the Island with green leaves
        down beside the water,
    The town, the Hoe, the masts with sunset fired—
  Dreams! ay, dreams of the dead! for the great heart
        faltered on the threshold,
    And darkness took the land his soul desired.

{45}

Vae Victis

    Beside the placid sea that mirrored her
      With the old glory of dawn that cannot die,
    The sleeping city began to moan and stir,
      As one that fain from an ill dream would fly;
      Yet more she feared the daylight bringing nigh
    Such dreams as know not sunrise, soon or late,—
      Visions of honour lost and power gone by,
    Of loyal valour betrayed by factious hate,
  And craven sloth that shrank from the labour of forging fate.

    They knew and knew not, this bewildered crowd
      That up her streets in silence hurrying passed,
    What manner of death should make their anguish loud,
      What corpse across the funeral pyre be cast,
      For none had spoken it; only, gathering fast
    As darkness gathers at noon in the sun's eclipse,
      A shadow of doom enfolded them, vague and vast,
    And a cry was heard, unfathered of earthly lips,
  What of the ships, O Carthage! Carthage, what of the ships?"

{46}

    They reached the wall, and nowise strange it seemed
      To find the gates unguarded and open wide;
    They climbed the shoulder, and meet enough they deemed
      The black that shrouded the seaward rampart's side
      And veiled in drooping gloom the turrets' pride;
    But this was nought, for suddenly down the slope
      They saw the harbour, and sense within them died;
    Keel nor mast was there, rudder nor rope;
  It lay like a sea-hawk's eyry spoiled of life and hope.

    Beyond, where dawn was a glittering carpet, rolled
      From sky to shore on level and endless seas,
    Hardly their eyes discerned in a dazzle of gold
      That here in fifties, yonder in twos and threes,
      The ships they sought, like a swarm of drowning bees
    By a wanton gust on the pool of a mill-dam hurled,