Song

Now the purple night is past,Now the moon more faintly glows,Dawn has through thy casement castRoses on thy breast, a rose;Now the kisses are all done,Now the world awakes anew,Now the charmed hour is gone,Let not love go, too.

When old winter, creeping nigh,Sprinkles raven hair with white,Dims the brightly glancing eye,Laughs away the dancing light,Roses may forget their sun,Lilies may forget their dew,Beauties perish, one by one,Let not love go, too.

Palaces and towers of prideCrumble year by year away;Creeds like robes are laid aside,Even our very tombs decay!When the all-conquering moth and rustGnaw the goodly garment through,When the dust returns to dust,Let not love go, too.

Kingdoms melt away like snow,Gods are spent like wasting flames,Hardly the new peoples knowTheir divine thrice-worshipped names!At the last great hour of all,When thou makest all things new,Father, hear Thy children call,Let not love go, too.

The song ceased: all was still; and now it seemedPower brooded on the silence, and Drake sawA woman come to meet him,--tall and paleAnd proud she seemed: behind her head two wingsAs of some mighty phantom butterflyGlimmered with jewel-sparks in the gold gloom.Her small, pure, grey-eyed face above her ruffWas chiselled like an agate; and he knewIt was the Queen. Low bent he o'er her hand;And "Ah," she said, "Sir Francis WalsinghamHath told me what an English heart beats here!Know you what injuries the King of SpainHath done us?" Drake looked up at her: she smiled,"We find you apt! Will you not be our knightFor we are helpless"--witchingly she smiled--"We are not ripe for war; our policyMust still be to uphold the velvet cloakOf peace; but I would have it mask the handThat holds the dagger! Will you not unfoldYour scheme to us?" And then with a low bowWalsingham, at a signal from the Queen,Withdrew; and she looked down at Drake and smiled;And in his great simplicity the manSpake all his heart out like some youthful knightBefore his Gloriana: his heart burned,Knowing he talked with England, face to face;And suddenly the Queen bent down to him,England bent down to him, and his heart reeledWith the beauty of her presence--for indeedWomen alone have royal power like thisWithin their very selves enthroned and shrinedTo draw men's hearts out! Royal she bent downAnd touched his hand for a moment. "Friend," she said,Looking into his face with subtle eyes,"I have searched thy soul to-night and know full wellHow I can trust thee! Canst thou think that I,The daughter of my royal father, lackThe fire which every boor in England feelsBurning within him as the bloody scoreWhich Spain writes on the flesh of EnglishmenMounts higher day by day? Am I not Tudor?I am not deaf or blind; nor yet a king!I am a woman and a queen, and whereKings would have plunged into their red revengeOr set their throne up on this temporal shore,As flatterers bade that wiser king Canúte,Thence to command the advancing tides of battleTill one ensanguined sea whelm throne and kingAnd kingdom, friend, I take my woman's way,Smile in mine enemies' faces with a heartAll hell, and undermine them hour by hour!This island scarce can fend herself from France,And now Spain holds the keys of all the world,How should we fight her, save that my poor witHath won the key to Philip? Oh, I knowHis treacherous lecherous heart, and hour by hourMy nets are drawing round him. I, that starveMy public armies, feed his private foes,Nourish his rebels in the Netherlands,Nay, sacrifice mine own poor woman's heartTo keep him mine, and surely now stands FateWith hand uplifted by the doors of SpainReady to knock: the time is close at handWhen I shall strike, once, and no second stroke.Remember, friend, though kings have fought for her,This England, with the trident in her grasp,Was ever woman; and she waits her throne;And thou canst speed it. Furnish thee with ships,Gather thy gentleman adventurers,And be assured thy parsimonious queen--Oh ay, she knows that chattering of the world--Will find thee wealth enough. Then put to sea,Fly the black flag of piracy awhileAgainst these blackest foes of all mankind.Nay; what hast thou to do with piracy?Hostis humani generis indeedIs Spain: she dwells beyond the bounds of law;Thine is no piracy, whate'er men say,Thou art a knight on Gloriana's quest.Oh, lay that golden unction to thy soul,This is no piracy, but glorious war,Waged for thy country and for all mankind,Therefore put out to sea without one fear,Ransack their El Dorados of the West,Pillage their golden galleons, sap their strengthEven at its utmost fountains; let them knowThat there is blood, not water, in our veins.Sail on, my captain, to the glorious end,And, though at first thou needs must sail aloneAnd undefended, ere that end be reached,When I shall give the word, nay, but one word,All England shall be up and after thee,The sword of England shall shine over thee,And round about thee like a guardian fire;All the great soul of England shall be there;Her mighty dead shall at that cry of doomRise from their graves and in God's panoplyPlunge with our standards through immortal stormsWhen Drake rides out across the wreck of Rome.As yet we must be cautious; let no breathEscape thee, save to thy most trusted friends;For now, if my lord Burleigh heard one wordOf all thou hast in mind, he is so muchThe friend of caution and the beaten road,He would not rest till he had spilled thy hopesAnd sealed thy doom! Go now, fit out thy ships.Walsingham is empowered to give thee goldImmediately, but look to him for moreAs thou shalt need it, gold and gold to spare,My golden-hearted pilot to the shoresOf victory--so farewell;" and through the gloomShe vanished as she came; and Drake groped, dazed,Out through the doors, and found great WalsinghamAwaiting him with gold.But in the roomWhere Drake had held his converse with the QueenThe embroidered arras moved, and a lean face,White with its long eavesdropping upon death,Crept out and peered as a venomous adder peersFrom out dark ferns, then as the reptile flashesAlong a path between two banks of flowersAlmost too swift for sight, a stealthy form--One of the fifty spies whom Burleigh paid--Passed down the gold-gloomed corridor to seekHis master, whom among great books he found,Calm, like a mountain brooding o'er the sea.Nor did he break that calm for all these windsOf rumour that now burst from out the sky.His brow bent like a cliff over his thoughts,And the spy watched him half resentfully,Thinking his news well worth a blacker frown.At last the statesman smiled and answered, "Go;Fetch Thomas Doughty, Leicester's secretary."

Few suns had risen and set ere Francis DrakeHad furnished forth his ships with guns and men,Tried seamen that he knew in storms of old,--Will Harvest, who could haul the ropes and fightAll day, and sing a foc'sle song to cheerSea-weary hearts at night; brave old Tom MooneThe carpenter, whose faithful soul looked upTo Drake's large mastery with a mastiff's eyes;And three-score trusty mariners, all scarredAnd weather-beaten. After these there cameSome two-score gentleman adventurers,Gay college lads or lawyers that had grownSick of the dusty Temple, and were firedWith tales of the rich Indies and those tallEnchanted galleons drifting through the West,Laden with ingots and broad bars of gold.Already some had bought at a great priceGreen birds of Guatemala, which they woreOn their slouched hats, tasting the high romanceAnd new-found colours of the world like wine.By night they gathered in a marvellous innBeside the black and secret flowing Thames;And joyously they tossed the magic phrase"Pieces of eight" from mouth to mouth, and laughedAnd held the red wine up, night after night,Around their tables, toasting Francis Drake.Among these came a courtier, and none knewOr asked by whose approval, for each thoughtSome other brought him; yet he made his wayCautiously, being a man with a smooth tongue,The secretary of Leicester; and his nameWas Thomas Doughty. Most of all with DrakeHe won his way to friendship, till at lastThere seemed one heart between them and one soul.