Long narrative poems appeal to me for some strange reason. Noyes' The Highwayman, Kipling's Ballad of East and West, Macauley's Horatius at the Bridge, Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, Service's Cremation of Sam McGee, and on and on. I usually manage to memorize a few lines of each and sometimes in the night reach for lines I cannot recall so I wake up and re read the poem. And so it was with The Revenge.
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| Spanish Galleon |
In the 16th century, the galleon was the standard ocean going battleship of the western European nations. The
Spanish Galleons, as well as being armed with cannon, had high fore and aft castles which suited their battle tactic of boarding. The English
Race-built Galleons had low fore and aft castles and depended on superior speed and maneuverability as well as superior gunnery to keep the Spanish at a distance. The most famous of these was The Revenge (of which some 13 ships were to carry the name eventually).
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| The Revenge |
The revenge was Sir Francis Drake's flagship in 1588 when the British defeated the
Spanish Armada with help from the weather. In 1590, The Revenge, under Captain Martin Frobisher plied the Spanish Main to intercept bullion laden treasure vessels bound for Spain. In 1591, the British fleet, under Lord Thomas Howard was charged with patrolling the Spanish coastal area to blockage Spanish ships and prevent Spain from rearming as Phillip II did not give up easily. The Revenge was part of Howards patrol and captained by Sir Richard Grenville.
The Spanish set out with 53 ships to put an end to Howard's blockade when his small flotilla was harboured in the Azores with many sick and the ships in need of resupply. Tennyson says The Revenge had only a hundred seamen, while other sources say 250. Two hundred fifty was the standard crew size so I will go with Tennyson. So our story begins.
The Revenge, a ballad of the fleet by Alfred Lord Tennyson
At Flores, in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter’d bird, came flying
from far away;
“Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted
fifty-three!”
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: “’Fore God I am no
coward;
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of
gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow
quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with
fifty-three?”
II
Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: “I know you are no
coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I’ve ninety men and more that are lying sick
ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my
Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of
Spain.”
III
So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that
day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer
heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from
the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below:
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not
left to Spain,
To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of
the Lord.
IV
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
Englishmen.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of
the devil,
For I never turn’d my back upon Don or devil yet.”
V
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.
VI
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 up-shadowing high above us with her yawning
tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay’d.
VII
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.
VIII
But anon the great San Philip, she bethought herself
and went,
Having that within her womb that had left her ill
content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us
hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and
musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook ’em off as a dog that
shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.
IX
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 galleons 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?
X
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!”
XI
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!”
XII
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 Spaniard 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.
XIII
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.
XIV
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.
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And away she sail’d with her loss and long’d for her own;...
...To be lost evermore in the main. |
