Book II

So on a misty grey December mornFive ships put out from calm old Plymouth Sound;Five little ships, the largest not so largeAs many a coasting yacht or fishing-trawlTo-day; yet these must brave uncharted seasOf unimagined terrors, haunted glooms,And shadowy horrors of an unknown worldWild as primeval chaos. In the first,The Golden Hynde, a ship of eighteen guns,Drake sailed: John Wynter, a queen's captain, nextBrought out the Elizabeth, a stout new shipOf sixteen guns. The pinnace ChristopherCame next, in staunch command of old Tom MooneWho, five years back, with reeking powder grimed,Off Cartagena fought against the starsAll night, and, as the sun arose in blood,Knee-deep in blood and brine, stood in the darkPerilous hold and scuttled his own shipThe Swan, bidding her down to God's great deepRather than yield her up a prize to Spain.Lastly two gentleman-adventurersBrought 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 fireThat 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 empireFrom Gaudalchiber to the golden WestFor the instant sinking of all English shipsAnd the instant execution of their crewsWho durst appear in the Caribbean sea.Moreover, in the pith of their empriseA peril lurked--Burleigh's emissaries,The smooth-tongued Thomas Doughty, who had broughtHis brother--unacquitted of that chargeOf poisoning, raised against him by the friendsOf Essex, but in luckless time releasedLately for lack of proof, on no strong plea.These two wound through them like two snakes at easeIn Eden, waiting for their venomous hour.Especially did Thomas Doughty toilWith soft and flowery tongue to win his way;And Drake, whose rich imagination cravedFor something more than simple seaman's talk,Was marvellously drawn to this new friendWho 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 smilesCopied from Sidney's self, even to the glanceOf sudden, liquid sympathy, gave DrakeThat banquet of the soul he ne'er had knownNor needed till he knew, but needed now.So to the light of Doughty's answering eyesHe 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 hungWith scarlet broideries. Every polished gunGrinned through the jaws of some heraldic beast,Gilded and carven and gleaming with all hues;While in the cabin of the Golden HyndeRich perfumes floated, given by the great QueenHerself 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 gleamedWhile, fanned by favouring airs, the ships advancedWith streaming flags and ensigns and sweet chordsOf music struck by skilled musiciansWhom Drake brought with him, not from vanity,But knowing how the pulse of men beats highTo music; and the hearts of men like theseWere open to the high romance of earth,And they that dwelt so near God's mysteryWere proud of their own manhood. They went outTo danger, as to a sweetheart, far away.

Light as the sea-birds dipping their white wingsIn foam before the gently heaving prowsEach heart beat, while the low soft lapping splashOf water racing past them ripped and toreWhiter and faster, and the bellying sailsFilled out, and the chalk cliffs of England sankDwindling behind the broad grey plains of sea.Meekly content and tamely stay-at-homeThe sea-birds seemed that piped across the waves;And Drake, be-mused, leaned smiling to his friendDoughty and said, "Is it not strange to knowWhen we return yon speckled herring-gullsWill still be wheeling, dipping, flashing there?We shall not find a fairer land afarThan those thyme-scented hills we leave behind!Soon the young lambs will bleat across the combes,And breezes will bring puffs of hawthorn scentDown Devon lanes; over the purple moorsLavrocks will carol; and on the village greensAround the May-pole, while the moon hangs low,The boys and girls of England merrily swingIn country footing through the morrice dance.But many of us indeed shall not return."Then the other with a laugh, "Nay, like the manWho slept a hundred years we shall returnAnd find our England strange: there are great stormsBrewing; 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 WestTo die, as I have lived, in a free land."So said he, while the white cliffs dwindled down,Faded, and vanished; but the prosperous windCarried the five ships onward over the swellOf swinging, sweeping seas, till the sun sank,And height o'er height the chaos of the skiesBroke out into the miracle of the stars.Frostily glittering, all the Milky WayLay bare like diamond-dust upon the robeOf some great king. Orion and the PloughGlimmered through drifting gulfs of silver fleece,And, far away, in Italy, that nightYoung Galileo, looking upward, heardThe self-same whisper through that wild abyssWhich now called Drake out to the unknown West.But, after supper, Drake came up on deckWith Doughty, and on the cold poop as they leanedAnd gazed across the rolling gleam and gloomOf mighty muffled seas, began to giveVoices to those lovely captives of the brainWhich, like princesses in some forest-tower,Still yearn for the delivering prince, the sweetFar bugle-note that calls from answering minds.He told him how, in those dark days which nowSeemed like an evil dream, when the PrincessElizabeth even trembled for her lifeAnd read there, by the gleam of Smithfield fires,Those cunning lessons of diplomacyWhich saved her then and now for England's sake,He passed his youth. 'Twas when the power of SpainBegan to light the gloom, with that great glareOf 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 throughThe portals of the tomb to prove their loveStronger at least than death: and, in those daysA Puritan, with iron in his soul,Having in earlier manhood occupiedHis business in great waters and beheldThe bloody cowls of the Inquisition passBefore the midnight moon as he kept watch;And having then forsworn the steely seaTo dwell at home in England with his loveAt Tavistock in Devon, Edmund DrakeBegan, albeit too near the Abbey walls,To speak too staunchly for his ancient faith;And with his young child Francis, had to fleeBy night at last for shelter to the coast.Little the boy remembered of that flight,Pillioned behind his father, save the clangAnd clatter of the hoofs on stony groundStriking a sharp blue fire, while country talesOf highwaymen kindled his reckless heartAs the great steed went shouldering through the night.There Francis, laying a little sunburnt handOn the big bolstered pistol at each side,Dreamed with his wide grey eyes that he himselfWas riding out on some freebooting quest,And felt himself heroic. League by leagueThe magic world rolled past him as they rode,Leaving him nothing but a memoryOf his own making. Vaguely he perceivedA thousand meadows darkly streaming byWith clouds of perfume from their secret flowers,A wayside cottage-window pointing outA golden finger o'er the purple road;A puff of garden roses or a waftOf 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 windFierce with sharp savours of the stinging brineAgainst his dreaming face brought up a roarOf mystic welcome from the Channel seas.And there Drake paused for a moment, as a songStole o'er the waters from the MarygoldWhere some musician, striking luscious chordsOf sweet-stringed music, freed his heart's desireIn symbols of the moment, which the rest,And Doughty among them, scarce could understand.