Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE CRUISE OF THE 'ROVER', A.D. 1575, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE CRUISE OF THE 'ROVER', A.D. 1575, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They sailed away one morning when sowing-time was over
Last Line: Then kissed each other silently, and hand in hand they died.
Subject(s): Navy - Great Britain; Sea Battles; Ships & Shipping; English Navy; Naval Warfare


I

THEY sailed away one morning when sowing-time was over,
In long red fields above the sea they left the sleeping wheat;
Twice twenty men of Devonshire who manned their ship the Rover,
Below the little busy town where all the schooners meet.

II

Their sweethearts came and waved to them, and filled with noise of laughter
The echoing port below the cliff where thirty craft can ride.
Each lad cried out, "Farewell to thee!" the captain shouted after,
"By God's help we'll be back again before the harvest-tide."

III

They turned the Start and slipped along with speedy wind and weather;
Passed white Terceira's battlements, and, close upon the line,
Ran down a little carrack full of cloth and silk and leather,
And golden Popish images and good Madeira wine.

IV

The crew with tears and curses went tacking back to Flores;
The English forty cut the seas where none before had been,
And spent the sultry purple nights in English songs, and stories
Of England, and her soldiers, and her Spaniardhating queen.

V

At last the trade-wind caught them, the pale sharks reeled before them,
The little Rover shot ahead across the western seas;
All night the larger compass of a tropic sky passed o'er them,
Till they won the Mexique waters through a strait of banyan-trees.

VI

And there good luck befell them, for divers times they sighted
The sails of Spanish merchantmen bound homeward with their wares;
And twice they failed to follow them, and once they stopped benighted;
But thrice the flag of truce flew out, and the scented prize was theirs.

VII

But midsummer was on them, with close-reef gales and thunder,
Their heavy vessel wallowed beneath her weight of gold;
A long highway of ocean kept them and home asunder,
So back they turned towards England with a richlyladen hold.

VIII

But just outside Tampico a man-of-war was riding,
And all the mad young English blood in forty brains awoke,
The Rover chased the monster, and swiftly shorewards gliding,
Dipped down beneath the cannonade that o'er her bulwarks broke.

IX

Three several days they fought her, and pressed her till she grounded
On the sandy isle of Carmen, where milky palm-trees grow;
Whereat she waved an ensign, a peaceful trumpet sounded,
And all the Spaniards cried for truce, surrendering in a row.

X

Alas the wiles and jesuitries of scoundrel-hearted Spaniards,
The scarlet woman dyes their hands in deeper red than hers,
For every scrap of white that decked their tackling and their lanyards
Just proved them sly like devils and cowardly like curs.

XI

For out from countless coverts, from low palm-shaded islands,
That fledged in seeming innocence the smooth and shining main,
The pinnaces came gliding and hemmed them round in silence,
All manned with Indian bravos and whiskered dogs of Spain.

XII

Our captain darted forwards, his fair hair streamed behind him,
He shouted in his cheery voice, "For home and for the Queen!"
Three times he waved his gallant sword, but the flashes seemed to blind him,
And a hard look came across his mouth where late a smile had been.

XIII

We levelled with our muskets, and the foremost boat went under,
The ship's boy seized a trumpet and blew a merry blast;
The Spanish rats held off awhile, and gazed at us in wonder,
But the hindmost pushed the foremost on, and boarded us at last.

XIV

They climbed the larboard quarter with their hatchets and their sabres;
The Devon lads shot fast and hard, and sank their second boat,
But the Popish hordes were legion, and Hercules his labours
Are light beside the task to keep a riddled barque afloat.

XV

And twenty men had fallen, and the Rover's deck was reeling,
And the brave young captain died in shouting loud "Elizabeth!"
The Spaniards dragged the rest away just while the ship was heeling,
Lest she should sink and rob them of her sailors' tortured breath.

XVI

For they destined them to perish in a slow and cruel slaughter,
A feast for monks and Jesuits too exquisite to lose;
So they caught the English sailors as they leaped into the water,
And a troop of horse as convoy brought them north to Vera Cruz.

XVII

They led them up a sparkling beach of burning sand and coral,
They dragged the brave young Englishmen like hounds within a leash;
They passed beneath an open wood of leaves that smelt of laurel,
Bound close together, each to each, with cords that cut the flesh.

XVIII

And miles and miles along the coast they tramped beneath no cover,
Till in their mouths each rattling tongue was like a hard dry seed,
And ere they came to Vera Cruz when that long day was over,
The coral cut their shoes to rags, and made them wince and bleed.

XIX

Then as they clambered up the town, the jeering crowd grew thicker,
And laughed to see their swollen feet and figures marred and bent,
And women with their hair unloosed stood underneath the flicker
Of torch and swinging lantern, and cursed them as they went.

XX

And three men died of weariness before they reached the prison,
And one fell shrieking with the pain of a poniard in the back,
And when dawn broke in the morning three other souls had risen
To bear the dear Lord witness of the hellish Spaniard pack.

XXI

But the monks girt up their garments, the friars bound their sandals,
They hurried to the market-place with faggots of dry wood,
And the acolytes came singing, with their incense and their candles,
To offer to their images a sacrifice of blood.

XXII

But they sent the leech to tend them, with his pouch and his long phial,
And the Jesuits came smiling, with honied words at first,
For they dared not burn the heretics without some show of trial,
And the English lads were dying of poisoned air and thirst.

XXIII

So they gave them draughts of water from a great cold earthen firkin,
And brought them to the courtyard where the tall hidalgo sat,
And he looked a gallant fellow in his boots and his rough jerkin,
With the jewels on his fingers, and the feather in his hat.

XXIV

And he spoke out like a soldier, for he said, "Ye caught them fighting,
They met you with the musket, by the musket they shall fall.
They are Christians in some fashion, and the pile you're bent on lighting
Shall blaze with none but Indians, or it shall not blaze at all."

XXV

So they led them to a clearing in the wood outside the city,
Struck off the gyves that bound them, and freed each crippled hand,
And dark-eyed women clustered round and murmured in their pity,
But won no glance nor answer from the steadfast English band.

XXVI

For their lives rose up before them in crystalline completeness,
And they lost the flashing soldiery, the sable horde of Rome,
And the great magnolias round them, with wave on wave of sweetness,
Seemed just the fresh profusion and hawthorn lanes of home.

XXVII

They thought about the harvests, and wondered who would reap them;
They thought about the little port where thirty craft can ride;
They thought about their sweethearts, and prayed the Lord to keep them;
Then kissed each other silently, and hand in hand they died.





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