w fields of England's war,
With sails like blossoms shining after rain,
And guns that sparkle to the morning star?
Drake!--first upon the deep that rolls to Trafalgar!

And Spain knows well that flag of fiery fame,
Spain knows who leads those files across the sea;
Implacable, invincible, his name
_El Draque_, creeps hissing through her ranks to lee;
But now she holds the rolling heavens in fee,
His ships are few. _They surge across the foam,
The hunt is up!_ But need the mountains flee
Or fear the snarling wolf-pack? Let them come!
They crouch, but dare not leap upon the flanks of Rome.

Nearer they come and nearer! Nay, prepare!
Close your huge ranks that sweep from sky to sky!
Madness itself would shrink; but Drake will dare
Eternal hell! Let the great signal fly--
Close up your ranks; El Draque comes down to die!
El Draque is brave! The vast sea-cities loom
Thro' heaven: Spain spares one smile of chivalry,
One wintry smile across her cannons' gloom
As that frail fleet full-sail comes rushing tow'rds its doom.

Suddenly, as the wild change of a dream,
Even as the Spaniards watched those lean sharp prows
Leap straight at their huge hulks, watched well content,
Knowing their foes, once grappled, must be doomed;
Even as they caught the rush and hiss of foam
Across that narrow, dwindling gleam of sea,
And heard, abruptly close, the sharp commands
And steady British answers, caught one glimpse
Of bare-armed seamen waiting by their guns,
The vision changed! The ships of England swerved
Swiftly--a volley of flame and thunder swept
Blinding the buffeted air, a volley of iron
From four sheer broadsides, crashing thro' a hulk
Of Spain. She reeled, blind in the fiery surge
And fury of that assault. So swift it seemed
That as she heeled to leeward, ere her guns
Trained on the foe once more, the sulphurous cloud
That wrapped the sea, once, twice, and thrice again
Split with red thunder-claps that rent and raked
Her huge beams through and through. Ay, as she heeled
To leeward still, her own grim cannon belched
Their lava skyward, wounding the void air,
And, as by miracle, the ships of Drake
Were gone. Along the Spanish rear they swept
From North to South, raking them as they went
At close range, hardly a pistol-shot