The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering

waves;

The rugged miners pour'd to war from Mendip's

sunless caves;

O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew :

He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu.

Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol town,

And ere the day three hundred horse had met on Clifton down;

The sentinel on Whitehall gate look'd forth into the

night,

And saw o'erhanging Richmond Hill the streak of blood-red light.

Then bugle's note and cannon's roar the deathlike silence broke,

And with one start, and with one cry, the royal city woke.

At once on all her stately gates arose the answering

fires;

At once the wild alarum clash'd from all her reeling spires;

From all the batteries of the Tower peal'd loud the voice of fear;

And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a louder cheer:

And from the furthest wards was heard the rush of

hurrying feet,

And the broad streams of pikes and flags rush'd down

each roaring street;

And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din,

As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in :

And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the warlike errand went,

And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent.

Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those bright couriers forth;

High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they started for the north;

And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still:

All night from tower to tower they sprang; they sprang from hill to hill :

Till the proud Peak unfurl'd the flag o'er Darwin's rocky dales,

Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales,

Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern's

lonely height,

Till stream'd in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's

crest of light,

Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely's

stately fane,

And tower and hamlet rose in arms o'er all the bound

less plain;

Till Belvoir's lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent, And Lincoln sped the message on o'er the wide vale of Trent;

Till Skiddaw saw the fire that blazed on Gaunt's em

battled pile,

And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.

MACAULAY.

XXVI.

THE REVENGE: A BALLAD OF THE

FLEET.

I.

AT FLORES in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay, And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from

far away:

"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fiftythree!"

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ""Fore God I

am no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of

gear,

And the half my men

follow quick.

are sick. I must fly, but

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fiftythree?"

II.

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again. But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

III.

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that

day,

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer

heaven;

But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from

the land

Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bideford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below;

For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not

left to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

IV.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,

And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came

in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather

bow.

“Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard, tell us now,

For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time this sun be set.” And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men,

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the

devil,

For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

V.

Sir Richard spoke and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so

The little Revenge ran on sheer into the heart of the

foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety

sick below;