Yet mine’s the spirit of a king, a king of England too! Full scorn I think that any King, or any prince on earth, Should dare to set his foot within the land that gave us birth! So I will be your general, and mark each gallant deed, And to the victors in the fight give each their fitting meed So o’er the enemies of my God, and of this nation free, The valour of your arms shall win a famous victory!” But now my Lord of Effingham had made his cautious plan, And in the night, off Dunkirk coast, a fearful fight began; At close of day uprose the tide, uprose a gale of wind, And, on its wings, eight fire-ships flew the Spanish fleet behind; With sulphur and with rosin filled, their hulls were all aflame. And right upon the foemen’s ships, the fiery terror came; The Spaniards then their anchors weighed, and some their cables threw, In aimless course before the wind the ponderous galleons flew. The morrow morn the English took full many a splendid prize, While some, hard hit, by shot and shell, went down before eyes. Some foul of one another fell, in Flemish shallows lost; The rest flew north before the gale, to round the Scottish coast. Ah! better had they yielded then, or waited for their time, Till change of wind might speed their course back to their southern clime; For, up beyond the Orkney Isles, a furious tempest roared, And many a gallant ship was lost with every soul on board. And, on the iron northern coast, vast hosts of valiant men Were wrecked, or drowned, or butchered there, and never saw again The southern sun, the orange groves, the smiling Spanish shore, Which, full of pride and hope, they left but three short months before; And only sixty ships came back, into Santander bay, Of all the host that once had sailed to take their northern way. And, ah! how changed the gallant fleet, how changed the ragged forms Alike of ships and men, sore marred by cruel seas and storms! All splintered were the masts and yards, the bowsprits shot away, The sails to ribbons torn, the men all fevered, gaunt and gray! But in old England swells the sound of mirth and joy and praise, By day triumphal banners wave, by night the bonfires blaze, The church-bells’ merry carillon, the cannon’s harmless roar, Are echoed loud from shire to shire, resound from shore to shore. At Whitehall now the Virgin Queen, on the appointed day, In grand procession takes her place amidst the crowded way. See, on her right, great Cecil rides: a wiser man than he Ne’er led our glorious country on to meet his destiny: And, on her left, in manhood’s prime, is Raleigh proud and brave, Back from Virginia lately come, across the Atlantic Wave. Lords Effingham and Seymour next move onward side by side, Hawkins and Drake and Frobisher but just behind them ride; Lord Oxford and Lord Cumberland, and Vavasor and Blount, And more of England’s chiefest men, too numerous to recount.