So with those--But, meanwhile, as against some dyke that men massively rear, From on high the torrent surges, to drive through the dyke as a spear, Eagle-eyed e’en in his blindness, our chief sets his double array, Making the fleet two spears, to thrust at the foe any way, ... ‘Anyhow!--without orders, each captain his Frenchman may grapple perforce; Collingwood first’ (yet the _Victory_ ne’er a whit slacken’d her course) ‘Signal for action! Farewell! we shall win, but we meet not again!’ --Then a low thunder of readiness ran from the decks o’er the main, And on,--as the message from masthead to masthead flew out like a flame, ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY,--they came. --Silent they come:--While the thirty black forts of the foeman’s array Clothe them in billowy snow, tier speaking o’er tier as they lay; Flashes that thrust and drew in, as swords when the battle is rife;-- But ours stood frowningly smiling, and ready for death as for life. --O in that interval grim, ere the furies of slaughter embrace, Thrills o’er each man some far echo of England; some glance of some face! --Faces gazing seaward through tears from the ocean-girt shore; Faces that ne’er can be gazed on again till the death pang is o’er.... Lone in his cabin the Admiral kneeling, and all his great heart As a child’s to the mother, goes forth to the loved one, who bade him depart ... O not for death, but glory! her smile would welcome him home! --Louder and thicker the thunderbolts fall:--and silent they come. As when beyond Dongola the lion, whom hunters attack, Plagued by their darts from afar, leaps in, dividing them back; So between Spaniard and Frenchman the _Victory_ wedged with a shout, Gun against gun; a cloud from her decks and lightning went out; Iron hailing of pitiless death from the sulphury smoke; Voices hoarse and parch’d, and blood from invisible stroke. Each man stood to his work, though his mates fell smitten around, As an oak of the wood, while his fellow, flame-shatter’d, besplinters the ground:-- Gluttons of danger for England, but sparing the foe as he lay; For the spirit of Nelson was on them, and each was Nelson that day.