D'Anville's Fleet. John Hunter-Duvar (1821-1899). British America: Halifax, the Harbor, N. S. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Americas: Vol. XXX

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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Americas: Vol. XXX. 1876–79.

British America: Halifax, the Harbor, N. S.

D’Anville’s Fleet

John Hunter-Duvar (1821–1899)


(Excerpt) ’T WAS in the month October,
On an Indian summer day,
That a fleet of foreign war-ships
Sailed up Chebucto Bay,—
On the waters of the Basin,	5
Scarce heaving there they lay.

The ships seemed old and storm-beat,
Their canvas was in strips,
The rust of smoke and ocean spray
Hung on the cannons’ lips,	10
And in the lull, the fleur-de-lys
Hung drooping o’er the ships.

There were but seventeen vessels,
As our traditions tell,
Of seventy sail that three months since	15
Sailed out of gay Rochelle,
Yet skilful were the captains,
And they sailed their vessels well.

But fogs uprose, with never a noon,
For clouds upclomb the heights,	20
And then would fall, as dark as pall,
The long Atlantic nights,
Save for the north-wind’s harbinger,
The bright auroral lights.

Whereby from out the nor’west cloud	25
Would storm come on to blow,
And in the wrack tall mast would crack,
Till, shattered aloft and low,
The gallant hulls like wearied things
Lay rocking to and fro.	30

Four enemies had that struggling fleet,—
The tempest and the sea,
The English ships and the pestilence,
They might have withstood the three,
But the angel of death sailed with the ships,	35
And preyed there silently. * * * * *
Brave men! but yet stout hearts grew faint,
For whispers dark and vague,
Of spectres such as legends tell
Beleaguered the walls of Prague,	40
Crept man to man, for men knew then
On board them was the plague!

At even-fire the bells were rung,
To cast to the deep their dead;
At morning gun death’s rites begun,—	45
The sheet and the weight of lead;
And all day long the dying groan
Told another vacant bed.

The gunner who fired the sunrise gun,
With a comrade by his side,	50
Ere eight bells tolled the hour of noon,
Was drifting out on the tide;
And his comrade ere the day was done
Was ta’en with the plague and died.

And so from wearisome day to day	55
The pestilence walked the decks,
Till hands were so few that scarce a crew
Could man those floating specks,
And at length, when they lay in Chebucto Bay,
They were little but death and wrecks.	60

Of seventy sail of armèd ships
That were fitted out in June,
But seventeen sail made up the tale,—
With their Admiral sick,—that noon;
And there, the shattered hulks, they lay	65
In form of a half-moon.

Arrived at last, men glances cast
At the coast of rock and tree,
While thoughts of home came winging fast
From over the sorrowful sea,	70
And the little sailor-boy up on the mast,
Up on the mast sang he:

“My cousin spinning at her wheel,
My sister Nanette’s tread,
As watches she so kind and leal	75
By my sick mother’s bed,—
Ah! do they in their evening prayer
Pray God and Mary for me?
Oh, never again! Oh, never again!
My home in Picardie!”	80

Kneeling, the Admiral sadly prayed,
And sadly himself he crossed:
“My soul to God and my sword to the King,
And tell him that all is lost.
Oh, weary my life! Oh, weary my death!	85
Oh, weary and tempest-tost!”

Next morn the Admiral’s barge of state
Was rowed adown the Bay,
And in it, wrapped in the flag of France,
The Admiral D’Anville lay,	90
And sad the boom of his funeral guns
Made the heart of the fleet that day.

Then cried the Seigneur d’Estournelle:
“Shall I command this host?
Shall I go back to gallant France	95
And say that all is lost?
No! weary my life! Oh, weary my death,
Oh, weary and tempest-tost!”

Again the Admiral’s barge of state
Was rowed adown the Bay,	100
And in it, wrapped in the flag of France,
Sieur d’Estournelle he lay,
And sad the sound of his funeral guns
Made the heart of the fleet that day.

Then spoke the crews among themselves:	105
“Is this without remede?
Ho! Scotsman, Sieur de Ramsay,
St. André be thy speed!
Now that the Admiral’s dead and gone,
You help us in our need!”	110

Up spake the Sieur de Ramsay:
“Make ready to advance!”
This is the hand of God, my men,
And not the work of chance;
And by God’s help and St. Denis,	115
I ’ll take this fleet to France!

“Ho! mates, there! beat to quarters,—
Tell off each man and gun,—
Fire wrecks! the rest make sailing-trim
Ere rising of the sun,—	120
Who is there fears to follow me?
Who? Men of France? Not one!”

All night the forges’ sparkles flew,
All night rang hammers’ clank,
All night the boat and swift canoe	125
Plied to and from the bank,—
When morning broke the shattered fleet
Was rearranged in rank.

With swelling hearts, yet steady front,
They turned them to the west;	130
The pine grove lay in its shadows gray
Above their comrades’ rest.
And the wrecks, a fleet of fire they lay
Reddening the water’s breast.

Last look all took of the burning ships	135
Lit up in fitful glow,
The tongues of flame they whistled and moaned
As the breeze came on to blow,
And the sigh of the trees o’er the buried dead
Sang requiem soft and low. * * * * *	140
God sain thy soul, O Duc d’Anville!
D’Estournelle, Christ thee save!
May clement Heaven benignant be
To all ye Frenchmen brave,
Though naught now shows your resting-place,	145
No cairn to mark your grave,—

Naught save, in hollow of a hill,
A bed of lichened stones,
With scattered tufts of herbage sown,
And flecked with pine-tree cones	150
From stunted trees, whose prying roots
Grope among dead men’s bones.

Yet, sometimes, some stray thinkers
Take boat, and downwards glance
Where, blue as Mediterranean,	155
“The Basin’s” waters dance,
And see the ribs of d’Anville’s fleet,
The Armada of fair France.

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