of God, not into the hands of Spain!"
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.
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.
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 honour 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.
ALFRED TENNYSON.
SIR GALAHAD.
Sir Galahad is the most moral and upright of all the Knights of the
Round Table. The strong lines of the poem (Tennyson, 1809-92) are the
strong lines of human destiny--
"My strength is as the strength of ten
Because my heart is pure."
My good blade carves the casques of men,
My tough lance thrusteth sure,
My strength is as the strength of ten,
Because my heart is pure.
The shattering trumpet shrilleth high,
The hard brands shiver on the steel,
The splintered spear-shafts crack and fly,
The horse and ri
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