d on those transports--we being kept elsewhere
By feigning forces.--Good God, Collingwood,
I must be gone! Yet two more days remain
Ere I can get away.--I must be gone!

COLLINGWOOD

Wherever you may go to, my dear lord,
You carry victory with you. Let them launch,
Your name will blow them back, as sou'west gales
The gulls that beat against them from the shore.

NELSON

Good Collingwood, I know you trust in me;
But ships are ships, and do not kindly come
Out of the slow docks of the Admiralty
Like wharfside pigeons when they are whistled for:--
And there's a damned disparity of force,
Which means tough work awhile for you and me!

[The Spirit of the Years whispers to NELSON.]

And I have warnings, warnings, Collingwood,
That my effective hours are shortening here;
Strange warnings now and then, as 'twere within me,
Which, though I fear them not, I recognize!...
However, by God's help, I'll live to meet
These foreign boasters; yea, I'll finish them;
And then--well, Gunner Death may finish me!

COLLINGWOOD

View not your life so gloomily, my lord:
One charmed, a needed purpose to fulfil!

NELSON

Ah, Coll. Lead bullets are not all that wound....
I have a feeling here of dying fires,
A sense of strong and deep unworded censure,
Which, compassing about my private life,
Makes all my public service lustreless
In my own eyes.--I fear I am much condemned
For those dear Naples and Palermo days,
And her who was the sunshine of them all!...
He who is with himself dissatisfied,
Though all the world find satisfaction in him,
Is like a rainbow-coloured bird gone blind,
That gives delight it shares not. Happiness?
It's the philosopher's stone no alchemy
Shall light on this world I am weary of.--
Smiling I'd pass to my long home to-morrow
Could I with honour, and my country's gain.
--But let's adjourn. I waste your hours ashore
By such ill-timed confessions!

[They pass out of sight, and the scene closes.]

SCENE II.

OFF FERROL

[The French and Spanish combined squadrons. On board the French
admiral's flag-ship. VILLENEUVE is discovered in his cabin, writing
a letter.]

SPIRIT OF THE PITIES

He pens in fits, with pallid restlessness,
Like one who sees Misfortune walk the wave,
And can nor face nor flee it.

SPIRIT OF THE YEARS