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Autumn, 1588
LET them come, come never so proudly | |
| O’er the green waves in tall array; | |
| Silver clarions menacing loudly, | |
| “All the Spains” on their pennons gay; | |
| High on deck of their gilded galleys | 5 |
| Our light sailers they scorn below: | |
| We will scatter them, plague and shatter them, | |
| Till their flag hauls down to the foe! | |
| For our oath we swear | |
| By the name we bear | 10 |
| By England’s Queen and England free and fair, | |
| Hers ever and hers still, come life, come death: | |
| God save Elizabeth! | |
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| Sidonia, Recalde, and Leyva | |
| Watch from their bulwarks in swarthy scorn: | 15 |
| Lords and princes by Philip’s favor: | |
| We by birthright are noble born! | |
| Freemen born of the blood of freemen, | |
| Sons of Cressy and Flodden are we: | |
| We shall sunder them, fire and plunder them, | 20 |
| English boats on the English sea! | |
| And our oath we swear | |
| By the name we bear, | |
| By England’s Queen and England free and fair,— | |
| Hers ever and hers still, come life, come death: | 25 |
| God save Elizabeth! | |
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| Drake and Frobisher, Hawkins and Howard, | |
| Raleigh, Cavendish, Cecil and Brooke, | |
| Hang like wasps by the flagships towered, | |
| Sting their way through the thrice-piled oak: | 30 |
| Let them range their seven-mile crescent, | |
| Giant galleons, canvas wide! | |
| Ours will harry them, board and carry them, | |
| Plucking the plumes of the Spanish pride; | |
| For our oath we swear | 35 |
| By the name we bear, | |
| By England’s Queen, and England free and fair,— | |
| Hers ever and hers still, come life, come death: | |
| God save Elizabeth! | |
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| Has God risen in wrath and scattered, | 40 |
| Have his tempests smote them in scorn? | |
| Past the Orcades, dumb and tattered, | |
| ’Mong sea-beasts do they drift forlorn? | |
| We were as lions hungry for battle; | |
| God has made our battle his own! | 45 |
| God has scattered them, sunk and shattered them: | |
| Give the glory to him alone! | |
| While our oath we swear | |
| By the name we bear, | |
| By England’s Queen and England free and fair,— | 50 |
| Hers ever and hers still, come life, come death: | |
| God save Elizabeth! | |
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