So desperately they boarded us
For all our valiant shot,
Threescore of their best fighting men
Upon our decks were got;
And lo! at their first entrances
Full thirty did we kill,
And thus with speed we cleared the deck
Of our Angel Gabriel.
With that their three ships boarded us
Again with might and main,
But still our noble Englishmen
Cried out 'A fig for Spain!'
Though seven times they boarded us
At last we showed our skill,
And made them feel what men we were
On the Angel Gabriel.
Seven hours this fight continued:
So many men lay dead,
With Spanish blood for fathoms round
The sea was coloured red.
Five hundred of their fighting men
We there outright did kill,
And many more were hurt and maimed
By our Angel Gabriel.
Then seeing of these bloody spoils,
The rest made haste away:
For why, they said, it was no boot
The longer there to stay.
Then they fled into Calès,
Where lie they must and will
For fear lest they should meet again
With our Angel Gabriel.
We had within our English ship
But only three men slain,
And five men hurt, the which I hope
Will soon be well again.
At Bristol we were landed,
And let us praise God still,
That thus hath blest our lusty hearts
And our Angel Gabriel.
TO THE LORD GENERAL
CROMWELL, Our chief of men, who through a cloud, Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed,
And on the neck of crowned Fortune proud
Hast reared God's trophies, and His work pursued,
While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester's laureate wreath : yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war: new foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw.
John Milton.
O HOW Comely it is, and how reviving
To the spirits of just men long oppress'd!
When God into the hands of their deliverer
Puts invincible might
To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor,
The brute and boisterous force of violent men,
Hardy and industrious to support
Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue
The righteous and all such as honour truth;
He all their ammunition
And feats of war defeats,
With plain heroic magnitude of mind
And celestial vigour arm'd;
Their armouries and magazines contemns,
Renders them useless; while
With winged expedition,
Swift as the lightning glance, he executes
His errand on the wicked, who, surprised,
Lose their defence, distracted and amazed.
John Milton.
HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S
RETURN FROM IRELAND
THE forward youth that would appear,
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.
'Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unused armour's rust,
Removing from the wall
The corselet of the hall.
So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urgèd his active star:
And, like the three-fork'd lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide:
For 'tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such to inclose
Is more than to oppose;
Then burning through the air he went
And palaces and temples rent;
And Cæsar's head at last
Did through his laurels blast.
"Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry Heaven's flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due
Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reserved and austere
(As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot),
Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old
Into another mould;
Though Justice against Fate complain, And plead the ancient rights in vain(But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak),
Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.
What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art,
Where, twining subtile fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook's narrow case,
That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armed bands
Did clap their bloody hands.
He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;
Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bow'd his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.
This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forced power:
So, when they did design
The Capitol's first line,
A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!
And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That doth both act and know.
They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust;
Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the Republic's hand
(How fit he is to sway,
That can so well obey!),
He to the Commons' feet presents
A Kingdom for his first year's rents,
And (what he may) forbears
His fame, to make it theirs :
And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the Public's skirt
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,
She, having killed, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch,
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.
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