ssed it on
Round the bluff East and the black mouth of Thames,--
Up, northward to the waste wild Yorkshire fells
And gloomy Cumberland, where, like a giant,
Great Skiddaw grasped the red tempestuous brand,
And thrust it up against the reeling heavens.
Then all night long, inland, the wandering winds
Ran wild with clamour and clash of startled bells;
All night the cities seethed with torches, flashed
With twenty thousand flames of burnished steel;
While over the trample and thunder of hooves blazed forth
The lightning of wild trumpets. Lonely lanes
Of country darkness, lit by cottage doors
Entwined with rose and honeysuckle, roared
Like mountain-torrents now--East, West, and South,
As to the coasts with pike and musket streamed
The trained bands, horse and foot, from every town
And every hamlet. All the shaggy hills
From Milford Haven to the Downs of Kent,
And up to Humber, gleamed with many a hedge
Of pikes between the beacon's crimson glares;
While in red London forty thousand men,
In case the Invader should prevail, drew swords
Around their Queen. All night in dark St. Paul's,
While round it rolled a multitudinous roar
As of the Atlantic on a Western beach,
And all the leaning London streets were lit
With fury of torches, rose the passionate prayer
Of England's peril:
_O Lord God of Hosts,
Let Thine enemies know that Thou hast taken
England into Thine hands!_
The mighty sound
Rolled, billowing round the kneeling aisles, then died,
Echoing up the heights. A voice, far off,
As on the cross of Calvary, caught it up
And poured the prayer o'er that deep hush, alone:
_We beseech Thee, O God, to go before our armies,
Bless and prosper them both by land and sea!
Grant unto them Thy victory, O God,
As Thou usedst to do to Thy children when they please Thee!
All power, all strength, all victory come from Thee!_
Then from the lips of all those thousands burst
A sound as from the rent heart of an ocean,
One tumult, one great rushing storm of wings
Cleaving the darkness round the Gates of Heaven:
_Some put their trust in chariots and some in horses;
But we will remember Thy name, O Lord our God!_

So, while at Plymouth Sound her seamen toiled
All through the night, and sca