XII

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.

XIII

And the stately Spanish men to their flagship (1) 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.

XIV

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 honour down into the deep,

And they mann'd the Revenge with a swarthier alien

crew,

(1) Nave ammiraglia.

And away she sail'd with her loss and long'd for her

own;

When a wind from the lands they had ruin'd 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 earthquake 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 shotshatter'd navy of Spain,

And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags

To be lost evermore in the main.

PENSIERI E SENTENZE VARIE

*

As the husband is, the wife is.

A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.

Let there be light and there was light: 'tis so:
For was, and is, and will be, are but is;

And all creation is one act at once,

The birth of light: but we that are not all,

As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that,
And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make
One act a phantom of succession.

Woman is not undevelopt man,

But diverse: could we make her as the man,

Sweet Love were slain: his dearest bond is this,
Not like to like, but like in difference.

Letture Inglesi. Vol. III.

22

**

Dreams are true while they last, and do we not live in dreams?

Words, like Nature, half reveal and half conceal the Soul within.

"Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

*

* *

The churl in spirit, up or down
Along the scale of ranks, thro' all,
To him who grasps a golden ball,
By blood a king, at heart a clown;
The churl in spirit, howe'er he veil
His want in forms for fashion's sake,
Will let his coltish nature break
At seasons thro' the gilded pale:
For who can always act?

What is Knowledge, cut from love and faith, but some wild Pallas from the brain of Demons?

* *

Life is not an idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,
And heated hot with burning fears,
And dipt in baths of hissing tears,

And batter'd with the shocks of doom

To shape and use.

It is better to fight for the good than to rail at the ill.

In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours,
Faith and unfaith can ne'er be equal powers:
Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.

APPENDICE

I Poeti contemporanei