away,
With volley on volley. Never Spain had seen
Seamen or marksmen like to these who sailed
Two knots against her one. They came and went,
Suddenly neared or sheered away at will
As if by magic, pouring flame and iron
In four full broadsides thro' some Spanish hulk
Ere one of hers burst blindly at the sky.
Southward, along the Spanish rear they swept,
Then swung about, and volleying sheets of flame,
Iron, and death, along the same fierce road
Littered with spars, reeking with sulphurous fumes,
Returned, triumphantly rushing, all their sails
Alow, aloft, full-bellied with the wind.

Then, then, from sky to sky, one mighty surge
Of baleful pride, huge wrath, stormy disdain,
With shuddering clouds and towers of sail would urge
Onward the heaving citadels of Spain,
Which dragged earth's thunders o'er the groaning main,
And held the panoplies of faith in fee,
Beating against the wind, struggling in vain
To close with that swift ocean-cavalry:
Spain had all earth in charge! Had England, then, the sea?

Spain had the mountains--mountains flow like clouds.
Spain had great kingdoms--kingdoms melt away!
Yet, in that crescent, army on army crowds,
How shall she fear what seas or winds can say?--
The seas that leap and shine round earth's decay,
The winds that mount and sing while empires fall,
And mountains pass like waves in the wind's way,
And dying gods thro' shuddering twilights call.
Had England, then, the sea that sweeps o'er one and all?

See, in gigantic wrath the _Rata_ hurls
Her mighty prows round to the wild sea-wind:
The deep like one black maelstrom round her swirls
While great Recalde follows hard behind:
Reeling, like Titans, thunder-blasted, blind,
They strive to cross the ships of England--yea,
Challenge them to the grapple, and only find
Red broadsides bursting o'er the bursting spray,
And England surging still along her windward way!

To windward still _Revenge_ and _Raleigh_ flash
And thunder, and the sea flames red between:
In vain against the wind the galleons crash
And plunge and pour blind volleys thro' the screen
Of rolling sulphurous clouds at dimly seen
Topsails that, to and fro, like sea-birds fly!
Ever to leeward the great hulks careen;
Their thousand cannon can but