Song

The moon is up: the stars are bright:The wind is fresh and free!We're out to seek for gold to-nightAcross the silver sea!The world was growing grey and old;Break out the sails again!We're out to seek a Realm of GoldBeyond the Spanish Main.

We're sick of all the cringing knees,The courtly smiles and lies.God, let Thy singing Channel breezeLighten our hearts and eyes!Let love no more be bought and soldFor earthly loss or gain.We're out to seek an Age of GoldBeyond the Spanish Main.

Beyond the light of far Cathay,Beyond all mortal dreams,Beyond the reach of night and dayOur El Dorado gleams,Revealing--as the skies unfold--A star without a stain,The Glory of the Gates of GoldBeyond the Spanish Main.

And, as the skilled musician made the wordsOf momentary meaning still simplyHis own eternal hope and heart's desire,Without belief, perchance, in Drake's own quest--To Drake's own greater mind the eternal glorySeemed to transfigure his immediate hope.But Doughty only heard a sweet concourseOf sounds. They ceased. And Drake resumed his taleOf that strange flight in boyhood to the sea.Next, the red-curtained inn and kindly handsOf Protestant Plymouth held his memory long;Often in strange and distant dreams he sawThat scene which now he tenderly portrayedTo Doughty's half-ironic smiling lips,Half-sympathetic eyes; he saw againThat small inn parlour with the homely fareSet forth upon the table, saw the gangOf seamen dripping from the spray come in,Like great new thoughts to some adventurous brain.Feeding his wide grey eyes he saw them standAround the crimson fire and stamp their feetAnd scatter the salt drops from their big sea-boots;And all that night he lay awake and heardMysterious thunderings of eternal tidesMoaning out of a cold and houseless gloomBeyond the world, that made it seem most sweetTo slumber in a little four-walled innImmune from all that vastness. But at dawnHe woke, he leapt from bed, he ran and lookt,There, through the tiny high bright casement, there,--O, fairy vision of that small boy's facePeeping at daybreak through the diamond pane!--There first he saw the wondrous new-born world,And round its princely shoulders wildly flowing,Gemmed with a myriad clusters of the sun,The magic azure mantle of the sea.

And, afterwards, there came those marvellous daysWhen, on that battleship, a disused hulkRotting to death in Chatham Reach, they foundSanctuary and a dwelling-place at last.For, Hawkins, that great ship-man, being their friend,A Protestant, with power on Plymouth town,Nigh half whereof he owned, made Edmund DrakeReader of prayer to all the ships of warThat lay therein. So there the dreaming boy,Francis, grew up in that grim nurseryAmong the ropes and masts and great dumb mouthsOf idle ordnance. In that hulk he heardMany a time his father and his friendsOver some wild-eyed troop of refugeesThunder against the powers of Spain and Rome,"Idolaters who defiled the House of GodIn England;" and all round them, as he heard,The clang and clatter of shipwright hammers rang,And hour by hour upon his vision rose,In solid oak reality, new ships,As Ilion rose to music, ships of war,The visible shapes and symbols of his dream,Unconscious yet, but growing as they grew,A wondrous incarnation, hour by hour,Till with their towering masts they stood complete,Embodied thoughts, in God's own dockyards built,For Drake ere long to lead against the world.

There, as to round the tale with ringing gold,Across the waters from the full-plumed SwanThe music of a Mermaid roundelay--Our Lady of the Sea, a Dorian themeTuned to the soul of England--charmed the moon.

In Devonshire, now, the Christmas chimeIs carolling over the lea;And the sexton shovels away the snowFrom the old church porch, maybe;And the waifs with their lanthorns and noses a-glowCome round for their Christmas fee;But, as in old England it's Christmas-time,Why, so is it here at sea,My lads,Why, so is it here at sea!

When the ship comes home, from turret to poopFilled full with Spanish gold,There'll be many a country dance and joke,And many a tale to be told;Every old woman shall have a red cloakTo fend her against the cold;And every old man shall have a big round stoupOf jolly good ale and old,My lads,Jolly good ale and old!

But on the morrow came a prosperous windWhereof they took advantage, and shook outThe flashing sails, and held their Christmas feastUpon the swirling ridges of the sea:And, sweeping Southward with full many a rouseAnd shout of laughter, at the fall of day,While the black prows drove, leapt, and plunged, and ploughedThrough the broad dazzle of sunset-coloured tides,Outside the cabin of the Golden Hynde,Where Drake and his chief captains dined in state,The skilled musicians made a great new song.