enturies.
The grave resumed his forlorn emperors.
His empires crumbled back to a little ash
Knocked from his pipe.--
He dropped his pen in homage to the truth.
The truth? _O, eloquent, just and mighty Death!_

Then, when he forged, out of one golden thought,
A key to open his prison; when the King
Released him for a tale of faerie gold
Under the tropic palms; when those grey walls
Melted before his passion; do you think
The gold that lured the King was quite the same
As that which Raleigh saw? You know the song:

"Say to the King," quoth Raleigh,
"I have a tale to tell him;
Wealth beyond derision,
Veils to lift from the sky,
Seas to sail for England,
And a little dream to sell him,
Gold, the gold of a vision
That angels cannot buy."

Ah, no! For all the beauty and the pride,
Raleigh was wrong; but not so wrong, I think,
As those for whom his kingdoms oversea
Meant only glittering dust. The fight he waged
Was not with them. They never worsted him.

It was _The Destiny_ that brought him home
Without the Spanish gold.--O, he was wrong,
But such a wrong, in Gloriana's day,
Was more than right, was immortality.
He had just half an hour to put all this
Into his pipe and smoke it,--

The red fire,
The red heroic fire that filled his veins
When the proud flag of England floated out
Its challenge to the world--all gone to ash?
What! Was the great red wine that Drake had quaffed
Vinegar? He must fawn, haul down his flag,
And count all nations nobler than his own,
Tear out the lions from the painted shields
That hung his poop, for fear that he offend
The pride of Spain? Treason to sack the ships
Of Spain? The wounds of slaughtered Englishmen
Cried out--_there is no law beyond the line!_
Treason to sweep the seas with Francis Drake?
Treason to fight for England?
If it were so,
The times had changed and quickly. He had been
A schoolboy in the morning of the world
Playing with wooden swords and winning crowns
Of tinsel; but his comrades had outgrown
Their morning-game, and gathered round to mock
His battles in the sunset. Yet he knew
That all his life had passed in that brief day;