ck in smoke--so Britain hurls back Spain;

Hurls her back, only to see her return,
Darkening the heavens with billow on billow of sail:
Round that huge storm the waves like lava burn,
The daylight withers, and the sea-winds fail!
Seamen of England, what shall now avail
Your naked arms? Before those blasts of doom
The sun is quenched, the very sea-waves quail:
High overhead their triumphing thousands loom,
When hark! what low deep guns to windward suddenly boom?

What low deep strange new thunders far away
Respond to the triumphant shout of Spain?
Is it the wind that shakes their giant array?
Is it the deep wrath of the rising main?
Is it--_El Draque_? El Draque! Ay, shout again,
His thunders burst upon your windward flanks;
The shoals creep out to leeward! Is it plain
At last, what earthquake heaves your herded ranks
Huddled in huge dismay tow'rds those white foam-swept banks?

Plain, it was plain at last, what cunning lured,
What courage held them over the jaws o' the pit,
Till Drake could hurl them down. The little ships
Of Howard and Frobisher, towed by their boats,
Slipped away in the smoke, while out at sea
Drake, with a gale of wind behind him, crashed
Volley on volley into the helpless rear
Of Spain and drove it down, huddling the whole
Invincible Fleet together upon the verge
Of doom. One awful surge of stormy wrath
Heaved thro' the struggling citadels of Spain.
From East to West their desperate signal flew,
And like a drove of bullocks, with the foam
Flecking their giant sides, they staggered and swerved,
Careening tow'rds the shallows as they turned,
Then in one wild stampede of sheer dismay
Rushed, tacking seaward, while the grey sea-plain
Smoked round them, and the cannonades of Drake
Raked their wild flight; and the crusading flag,
Tangled in one black maze of crashing spars,
Whirled downward like the pride of Lucifer
From heaven to hell.
Out tow'rds the coasts of France
They plunged, narrowly weathering the Ower banks;
Then, once again, they formed in ranks compact,
Roundels impregnable, wrathfully bent at last
Never to swerve again from their huge path
And solid end--to join with Parma's host,
And hurl the whole of Europe on our isle.
Another day was gone, much po