kr

For he said, Fight on! fight on!"

Though his vessel was all but a wreck;

And it chanced that, when half of the summer night was gone,

With a grisly wound to be dressed he had left the

deck,

But a bullet struck him that was dressing it suddenly

dead,

And himself he was wounded again in the side and the head,

And he said, "Fight on! fight on!"

And the night went down, and the sun smiled out far over the summer sea,

And the Spanish fleet with broken sides lay round us all in a ring;

But they dared not touch us again, for they feared that we still could sting,

So they watched what the end would be.
And we had not fought them in vain,
But in perilous plight were we,

Seeing forty of our poor hundred were slain,
And half of the rest of us maimed for life

In the crash of the cannonades and the desperate strife;
And the sick men down in the hold were most of them

stark and cold,

And the pikes were all broken or bent, and the powder was all of it spent ;

And the masts and the rigging were lying over the side; But Sir Richard cried in his English pride,

"We have fought such a fight for a day and a night

As may never be fought again!

We have won great glory, my men!

And a day less or more

At sea or ashore,

We die does it matter when?

Sink me the ship, Master Gunner - sink her, split her in twain!

Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain ! "

And the gunner said, "Ay, ay," but the seamen made

reply:

"We have children, we have wives,

And the Lord hath spared our lives;

We will make the Spaniard promise, if we yield, to let us go;

We shall live to fight again and to strike another blow." And the lion there lay dying, and they yielded to the

foe.

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship bore him then,

Where they laid him by the mast, old Sir Richard caught at last,

And they praised him to his face with their courtly foreign grace;

But he rose upon their decks, and he cried:

"I have fought for Queen and Faith like a valiant man and true;

I have only done my duty as a man is bound to do: With a joyful spirit I, Sir Richard Grenville, die!"

And he fell upon their decks, and he died.

And they stared at the dead that had been so valiant

and true,

And had holden the power and glory of Spain so cheap, That he dared her with one little ship and his English few;

Was he devil or man? He was devil for aught they knew,

But they sank his body with honor down into the deep, And they manned the "Revenge" with a swarthier alien crew,

And away she sailed with her loss and longed for her

own;

When a wind from the lands they had ruined awoke from sleep,

And the water began to heave and the weather to moan, And or ever that evening ended a great gale blew, And a wave like the wave that is raised by an earth

quake grew,

Till it smote on their hulls and their sails and their masts and their flags,

And the whole sea plunged and fell on the shot-shattered navy of Spain,

And the little "Revenge" herself went down by the

island crags

To be lost evermore in the main.

Alfred Tennyson.

Bermudas.

BERMUDA.

ERMUDA, walled with rocks, who does not know?

B That happy island where huge lemons grow,

And orange-trees, which golden fruit do bear,
The Hesperian garden boasts of none so fair;
Where shining pearl, coral, and many a pound,
On the rich shore, of ambergris is found.
The lofty cedar, which to heaven aspires,
The prince of trees! is fuel to their fires;
The smoke by which their loaded spits do turn,
For incense might on sacred altars burn;
Their private roofs on odorous timber borne,
Such as might palaces for kings adorn.
The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadow of whose friendly boughs
They sit, carousing where their liquor grows.
Figs there unplanted through the fields do grow,
Such as fierce Cato did the Romans show,
With the rare fruit inviting them to spoil
Carthage, the mistress of so rich a soil.
The naked rocks are not unfruitful there,
But, at some constant seasons, every year,
Their barren tops with luscious food abound,
And with the eggs of various fowls are crowned.
Tobacco is the worst of things, which they

To English landlords, as their tribute, pay.
Such is the mould, that the blessed tenant feeds
On precious fruits, and pays his rent in weeds.
With candied plantains, and the juicy pine,
On choicest melons, and sweet grapes, they dine,
And with potatoes fat their wanton swine.
Nature these cates, with such a lavish hand,
Pours out among them, that our coarser land
Tastes of that bounty, and does cloth return,
Which not for warmth, but ornament, is worn ;
For the kind spring, which but salutes us here,
Inhabits there, and courts them all the year.
Ripe fruits and blossoms on the same trees live;
At once they promise what at once they give.
So sweet the air, so moderate the clime,
None sickly lives, or dies before his time.

Heaven sure has kept this spot of earth uncursed, To show how all things were created first.

Edmund Waller.

SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA.

HERE the remote Bermudas ride

WHERE

In the ocean's bosom unespied,

From a small boat that rowed along

The listening winds received this song:

'What should we do but sing His praise,

That led us through the watery maze

Where he the huge sea-monsters wracks,
That lift the deep upon their backs,