a loud stream's
mouth,
Past Humber and Tees and Tyne and Tweed, they fly, scourged on from
the south,
And torn by the scourge of the storm-wind that smites as a harper
smites on a lyre,
And consumed of the storm as the sacrifice loved of their God is
consumed with fire,
And devoured of the darkness as men that are slain in the fires of
his love are devoured,
And deflowered of their lives by the storms, as by priests is the
spirit of life deflowered.
For the wind, of its godlike mercy, relents not, and hounds them
ahead to the north,
With English hunters at heel, till now is the herd of them past the
Forth,
All huddled and hurtled seaward; and now need none wage war upon
these,
Nor huntsmen follow the quarry whose fall is the pastime sought of
the seas.
Day upon day upon day confounds them, with measureless mists that
swell,
With drift of rains everlasting and dense as the fumes of ascending
hell.
The visions of priest and of prophet beholding his enemies bruised
of his rod
Beheld but the likeness of this that is fallen on the faithful, the
friends of God.
Northward, and northward, and northward they stagger and shudder
and swerve and flit,
Dismantled of masts and of yards, with sails by the fangs of the
storm-wind split.
But north of the headland whose name is Wrath, by the wrath or the
ruth of the sea,
They are swept or sustained to the westward, and drive through the
rollers aloof to the lee.
Some strive yet northward for Iceland, and perish: but some through
the storm-hewn straits
That sunder the Shetlands and Orkneys are borne of the breath which
is God's or fate's:
And some, by the dawn of September, at last give thanks as for
stars that smile,
For the winds have swept them to shelter and sight of the cliffs of
a Catholic isle.
Though many the fierce rocks feed on, and many the merciless
heretic slays,
Yet some that have laboured to land with their treasure are
trustful, and give God praise.
And the kernes of murderous Ireland, athirst with a greed
everlasting of blood,
Unslakable ever with slaughter and spoi