own; for there
Not only ruby and pearl like ocean-beaches
Heaped on some wizard coast in that dim hull
Blazed to the lanthorn-light; not only gold
Gleamed, though of gold a million would not buy
Her store; but in her cabin lay the charts
And secrets of the wild unwhispered wealth
Of India, secrets that splashed London wharves
With coloured dreams and made her misty streets
Flame like an Eastern City when the sun
Shatters itself on jewelled domes and spills
Its crimson wreckage thro' the silvery palms.
And of those dreams the far East India quest
Began: the first foundation-stone was laid
Of our great Indian Empire, and a star
Began to tremble on the brows of England
That time can never darken.
But now the seas
Darkened indeed with menace; now at last
The cold wind of the black approaching wings
Of Azrael crept across the deep: the storm
Throbbed with their thunderous pulse, and ere that moon
Waned, a swift gunboat foamed into the Sound
With word that all the Invincible Armada
Was hoisting sail for England.
Even now,
Elizabeth, torn a thousand ways, withheld
The word for which Drake pleaded as for life,
That he might meet them ere they left their coasts,
Meet them or ever they reached the Channel, meet them
Now, or--"Too late! Too late!" At last his voice
Beat down e'en those that blindly dinned her ears
With chatter of meeting Spain on British soil;
And swiftly she commanded (seeing once more
The light that burned amid the approaching gloom
In Drake's deep eyes) Lord Howard of Effingham,
High Admiral of England, straight to join him
At Plymouth Sound. "How many ships are wanted?"
She asked him, thinking "we are few, indeed!"
"Give me but sixteen merchantmen," he said,
"And but four battleships, by the mercy of God,
I'll answer for the Armada!" Out to sea
They swept, in the teeth of a gale; but vainly Drake
Strove to impart the thought wherewith his mind
Travailed--to win command of the ocean-sea
By bursting on the fleets of Spain at once
Even as they left their ports, not as of old
To hover in a vain dream of defence
Round fifty threatened points of British coast,
But Howard, clinging to his old-world order,
Flung out his ships in a loose, long, str