Great Britain -- History, Naval -- Poetry; Sea songs -- Great Britain
‘O that am I,’ says Captain Ward, ‘there’s no man bids me lye;
And if thou art the King’s fair ship thou art welcome unto me.’
‘I’le tell thee what,’ says _Rainbow_, ‘our King is in great grief
That thou should’st lye upon the sea and play the arrant thief,
‘And will not let our merchants’ ships pass, as they did before;
Such tydings to our King is come, which grieves his heart full sore.’
With that this gallant _Rainbow_ she shot, out of her pride,
Full fifty gallant brass pieces, charged on every side.
And yet these gallant shooters prevailed not a pin;
Though they were brass on the out-side brave Ward was steel within.
‘Shoot on, shoot on!’ says Captain Ward; ‘your sport well pleaseth
me;
And he that first gives over, shall yield unto the sea.
‘I never wrong’d an English ship, but Turk and King of Spain,
For and the jovial Dutch-man, as I met on the main.
If I had known your King but one two-years before,
I would have saved brave Essex life, whose death did grieve me sore.
‘Go, tell the King of England, go tell him thus from me,
If he reign king of all the land, I will reign king at sea.’
With that the gallant _Rainbow_ shot, and shot, and shot in vain,
And left the rover’s company, and home return’d again.
‘O Royal King of England, your ship’s returned again;
For Wards ship is so strong it never will be ta’ne.’
‘O everlasting!’ says our King, ‘I have lost jewels three,
Which would have gone into the seas and brought proud Ward to me!
‘The first was Lord Clifford, Earl of Cumberland;
The second was the Lord Mountjoy, as you shall understand;
The third was brave Essex, from field would never flee;
Which would ’a gone unto the seas and brought proud Ward to me!’
_THE LAMENTABLE CRIES OF AT LEAST 1500 CHRISTIANS:_
Most of them being Englishmen (now Prisoners in Argiers under the
Turkes) begging at Gods hand, that hee would open the eyes of all
Christian Kings and Princes, to commiserate the wretched estate of so
many captives: and withall to free them from that Turkish slavery, in
which both bodies and soules are in danger: with a Petition to the
Kings most excellent Maiestie and all Christian Princes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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