Linnet and woodpecker, red-cap and jay, Shriek that a doom shall fall One day, one day, on my pitiless way From the sky that is over us all; But the great blue hawk of the heavens above Fashioned the world for his prey,-- King and queen and hawk and dove, We shall meet in his clutch that day; _Shall I not welcome him, I, the hawk? Yea, cry, as they shrink from his claw, Cry, as I die, to the unknown sky, Life, I follow thy law!_ XIII _Chorus--_ _Ships have swept with my conquering name ..._ Over the world and beyond, Hark! Bellerophon, Marlborough, Thunderer, Condor, respond!-- _On the blistered decks of their dread renown, In the rush of my storm-beat wings, Hawkins and Hawke went sailing down To the glory of deep-sea kings! By the storm-beat wings of the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast, They clove their way thro' the red sea-fray! Who wakens me now to the quest._ THE ADMIRAL'S GHOST I tell you a tale to-night Which a seaman told to me, With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light And a voice as low as the sea. You could almost hear the stars Twinkling up in the sky, And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars, And the same old waves went by, Singing the same old song As ages and ages ago, While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night With the things that he seemed to know. A bare foot pattered on deck; Ropes creaked; then--all grew still, And he pointed his finger straight in my face And growled, as a sea-dog will. "Do' ee know who Nelson was? That pore little shrivelled form With the patch on his eye and the pinned-up sleeve And a soul like a North Sea storm? "Ask of the Devonshire men! They know, and they'll tell you true; He wasn't the pore little chawed-up chap That Hardy thought he knew. "He wasn't the man you think! His patch was a dern disguise! For he knew that they'd find him out, d'you see, If they looked him in both his eyes. "He was twice as big as he seemed; But his clothes were cunningly made. He'd both of his hairy arms all right! The sleeve was a trick of the trade. "You've heard of sperrits, no doubt; Well, there's more in the matter than that! But he wasn't the patch and he wasn't the sleeve, And he wasn't the laced cocked-hat. "_Nelson was just--a Ghost!_ You may laugh! But the Devonshire men They knew that he'd come when England called, And they know that he'll come again. "I'll tell you the way it was (For none of the landsmen know), And to tell it you right, you must go a-starn Two hundred years or so. * * * *