Book: The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886

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Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.




LXXXI. THE "REVENGE."

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET, 1591.

LORD TENNYSON.


At Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a flutter'd bird, came flying from far away:
"Spanish ships of war at sea! we have sighted fifty-three!"
Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: "'Fore God I am no coward!
But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out of gear,
And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow quick.
We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fifty-three?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;
You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.
But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick ashore.
I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,
To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,
Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven;
But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the land
Very carefully and slow,
Men of Bideford in Devon,
And we laid them on the ballast down below;
For we brought them all aboard,
And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,
To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight,
And he sail'd away from Flores till the Spaniard came in sight,
With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather bow.
"Shall we fight or shall we fly?
Good Sir Richard, let us know,
For to fight is but to die!
There'll be little of us left by the time the sun be set."
And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good Englishmen.
Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,
For I never turn'd my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke, and he laugh'd, and we roar'd a hurrah, and so
The little "Revenge" ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,
With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick below;
For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left were seen,
And the little "Revenge" ran on thro' the long sea-lane between.

Thousands of their soldiers look'd down from their decks and
laugh'd,
Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft
Running on and on, till delay'd
By their mountain-like "San Philip" that, of fifteen hundred tons,
And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
Took the breath from our sails, and we stay'd.

And while now the great "San Philip" hung above us like a cloud
Whence the thunderbolt will fall
Long and loud,
Four galleons drew away
From the Spanish fleet that day,
And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,
And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

But anon the great "San Philip," she bethought herself and went,
Having that within her womb that had left her ill-content;
And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,
For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,
And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears
When he leaps from the water to the land.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer
sea,
But never a moment ceas'd the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons
came,
Ship after ship, the whole night long, with their battle-thunder and
flame;
Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and
her shame;
For some were sunk and many were shatter'd, and so could fight us
no more--
God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world before?
For he said, "Fight on! fight on!"
Tho' 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 drest 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 fear'd that we still
could sting,
So they watch'd 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 maim'd 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 shore,
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 prais'd 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 mann'd the "Revenge" with a swarthier alien crew,
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 rais'd 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 shot-shatter'd navy of
Spain,
And the little "Revenge" herself went down by the island crags
To be lost evermore in the main.

* * * * *


_There is no land like England, where'er the light of day be;
There are no hearts like English hearts, such hearts of oak as
they be._

TENNYSON.




LXXXII. HERVE RIEL.

ROBERT BROWNING.--1812-


On the sea and at the Hogue, sixteen hundred ninety-two,
Did the English fight the French,--woe to France!
And, the thirty-first of May, helter-skelter through the blue,
Like a crowd of frighten'd porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St. Malo on the Rance,
With the English fleet in view.

'Twas the squadron that escaped, with the victor in full chase;
First and foremost of the drove, in his great ship, Damfreville;
Close on him fled, great and small,
Twenty-two good ships in all;
And they signall'd to the place
"Help the winners of a race!
Get us guidance, give us harbor, take us quick;--or, quicker
still,
Here's the English can and will!"

Then the pilots of the place put out brisk and leapt on board:
"Why, what hope or chance have ships like these to pass?"
laugh'd they:
"Rocks to starboard, rocks to port, all the passage scarr'd and
scored,
Shall the _Formidable_ here with her twelve and eighty guns
Think to make the river-mouth by the single narrow way,
Trust to enter where 'tis ticklish for a craft of twenty tons,
And with flow at full beside?
Now, 'tis slackest ebb of tide.
Reach the mooring? Rather say,
While rock stands or water runs,
Not a ship will leave the bay!"

Then was call'd a council straight.
Brief and bitter the debate:
"Here's the English at our heels; would you have them take in tow
All that's left us of the fleet, link'd together stern and bow,
For a prize to Plymouth Sound?
Better run the ships aground!"
(Ended Damfreville his speech.)
Not a minute more to wait!
"Let the captains all and each
Shove ashore, then blow up, burn the vessels on the beach!
France must undergo her fate.

"Give the word!" But no such word
Was ever spoke or heard;
For up stood, for out stepp'd, for in struck, amid all these,--
A captain? a lieutenant? a mate,--first, second, third?
No such man of mark, and meet
With his betters to compete!
But a simple Breton sailor press'd by Tourville for the fleet,
A poor coasting-pilot he,--Herve Riel, the Croisickese.

And "What mockery or malice have we here?" cries Herve Riel:
"Are you mad, you Malouins? Are you cowards, fools, or rogues?
Talk to me of rocks and shoals?--me, who took the soundings, tell
On my fingers every bank, every shallow, every swell
'Twixt the offing here and Greve where the river disembogues?
Are you bought by English gold? Is it love the lying's for?
Morn and eve, night and day,
Have I piloted your bay,
Enter'd free and anchor'd fast at the foot of Solidor.
Burn the fleet and ruin France? That were worse than fifty
Hogues!
Sirs, they know I speak the truth! Sirs, believe me there's
a way!
Only let me lead the line,
Have the biggest ship to steer,
Get this _Formidable_ clear,
Make the others follow mine,
And I lead them, most and least, by a passage I know well,
Right to Solidor past Greve,
And there lay them safe and sound;
And if one ship misbehave,--
Keel so much as grate the ground,--
Why, I've nothing but my life,--here's my head!" cries Herve Riel.

Not a minute more to wait.
"Steer us in, then, small and great!
Take the helm, lead the line, save the squadron!" cried its
chief.
Captains, give the sailor place!
He is admiral, in brief.
Still the north-wind, by God's grace!
See the noble fellow's face
As the big ship, with a bound,
Clears the entry like a hound,
Keeps the passage as its inch of way were the wide sea's profound!
See, safe through shoal and rock,
How they follow in a flock!
Not a ship that misbehaves, not a keel that grates the ground,
Not a spar that comes to grief!
The peril, see, is past!
All are harbor'd to the last!
And just as Herve Riel hollas "Anchor!"--sure as fate
Up the English come,--too late!

So, the storm subsides to calm:
They see the green trees wave
On the heights o'erlooking Greve.
Hearts that bled are stanch'd with balm.
"Just our rapture to enhance,
Let the English rake the bay,
Gnash their teeth and glare askance
As they cannonade away!
'Neath rampired Solidor pleasant riding on the Rance!"
Now hope succeeds despair on each captain's countenance!
Out burst all with one accord,
"This is Paradise for Hell!
Let France, let France's king,
Thank the man that did the thing!"
What a shout, and all one word,
"Herve Riel!"
As he stepp'd in front once more,
Not a symptom of surprise
In the frank blue Breton eyes,--
Just the same man as before.

Then said Damfreville, "My friend,
I must speak out at the end,
Though I find the speaking hard.
Praise is deeper than the lips;
You have saved the king his ships,
You must name your own reward.
'Faith our sun was near eclipse!
Demand whate'er you will,
France remains your debtor still.
Ask to heart's content, and have! or my name's not Damfreville."

Then a beam of fun outbroke
On the bearded mouth that spoke,
As the honest heart laugh'd through
Those frank eyes of Breton blue:
"Since I needs must say my say,
Since on board the duty's done,
And from Malo Roads to Croisic Point, what is it but a run?--
Since 'tis ask and have, I may,--
Since the others go ashore,--
Come! A good whole holiday!
Leave to go and see my wife, whom I call the Belle Aurore!"
That he ask'd and that he got,--nothing more.

Name and deed alike are lost:
Not a pillar nor a post
In his Croisic keeps alive the feat as it befell;
Not a head in white and black
On a single fishing smack,
In memory of the man but for whom had gone to wrack
All that France saved from the fight whence England bore
the bell.
Go to Paris: rank on rank
Search the heroes flung pell-mell
On the Louvre, face and flank!
You shall look long enough ere you come to Herve Riel.
So, for better and for worse,
Herve Riel, accept my verse!
In my verse, Herve Riel, do thou once more
Save the squadron, honor France, love thy wife the Belle Aurore!

* * * * *


_The Summum Pulchrum rests in heaven above;
Do thou, as best thou may'st, thy duty do:
Amid the things allow'd thee live and love,
Some day thou shalt it view._

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.




LXXXIII. SONNET.

PRESIDENT WILSON.--1816-


Great things were ne'er begotten in an hour;
Ephemerons in birth, are such in life;
And he who dareth, in the noble strife
Of intellects, to cope for real power,--
Such as God giveth as His rarest dower
Of mastery, to the few with greatness rife,--
Must, ere the morning mists have ceased to lower
Till the long shadows of the night arrive,
Stand in the arena. Laurels that are won,
Pluck'd from green boughs, soon wither; those that last
Are gather'd patiently, when sultry noon
And summer's fiery glare in vain are past.
Life is the hour of labor; on Earth's breast
Serene and undisturb'd shall be thy rest.




LXXXIV. OUR IDEAL.

PRESIDENT WILSON.


Did ever on painter's canvas live
The power of his fancy's dream?
Did ever poet's pen achieve
Fruition of his theme?
Did marble ever take the life
That the sculptor's soul conceiv'd?
Or ambition win in passion's strife
What its glowing hopes believ'd?
Did ever racer's eager feet
Rest as he reach'd the goal,
Finding the prize achiev'd was meet
To satisfy his soul?




LXXXV. FROM THE APOLOGY OF SOCRATES.

BENJAMIN JOWETT.--1817-

_From_ THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO.


Not much time will be gained, O Athenians, in return for the evil name
which you will get from the detractors of the city, who will say that
you killed Socrates, a wise man; for they will call me wise, even
although I am not wise, when they want to reproach you. If you had
waited a little while, your desire would have been fulfilled in the
course of nature. For I am far advanced in years, as you may perceive,
and not far from death. I am speaking now only to those of you who have
condemned me to death. And I have another thing to say to them: You
think that I was convicted through deficiency of words--I mean, that if
I had thought fit to leave nothing undone, nothing unsaid, I might have
gained an acquittal. Not so; the deficiency which led to my conviction
was not of words--certainly not. But I had not the boldness or impudence
or inclination to address you as you would have liked me to address you,
weeping and wailing and lamenting, and saying and doing many things
which you have been accustomed to hear from others, and which, as I say,
are unworthy of me. But I thought that I ought not to do anything common
or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my
defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than
speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought
any man to use every way of escaping death. For often in battle there is
no doubt that if a man will throw away his arms, and fall on his knees
before his pursuers, he may escape death; and in other dangers there
are other ways of escaping death, if a man is willing to say and do
anything. The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in
avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death. I am old and
move slowly, and the slower runner has overtaken me, and my accusers are
keen and quick, and the faster runner, who is unrighteousness, has
overtaken them. And now I depart hence, condemned by you to suffer the
penalty of death, and they too go their ways, condemned by the truth to
suffer the penalty of villainy and wrong; and I must abide by my
award--let them abide by theirs. I suppose that these things may be
regarded as fated,--and I think that they are well.

And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for
I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with
prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that
immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have
inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you
wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives.
But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there
will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto
I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more severe with
you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by
killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are
mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or
honorable; the easiest and the noblest way is not to be crushing others,
but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter
before my departure to the judges who have condemned me.

Friends, who would have acquitted me, I would like also to talk with you
about this thing which has happened, while the magistrates are busy, and
before I go to the place at which I must die. Stay then a while, for we
may as well talk with one another while there is time. You are my
friends, and I should like to show you the meaning of this event which
has happened to me. O my judges--for you I may truly call judges--I
should like to tell you of a wonderful circumstance. Hitherto the
familiar oracle within me has constantly been in the habit of opposing
me even about trifles, if I was going to make a slip or error about
anything; and now as you see there has come upon me that which may be
thought, and is generally believed to be, the last and worst evil. But
the oracle made no sign of opposition, either as I was leaving my house
and going out in the morning, or when I was going up into this court, or
while I was speaking, at anything which I was going to say; and yet I
have often been stopped in the middle of a speech, but now in nothing I
either said or did touching this matter has the oracle opposed me. What
do I take to be the explanation of this? I will tell you. I regard this
as a proof that what has happened to me is a good, and that those of us
who think that death is an evil are in error. This is a great proof to
me of what I am saying, for the customary sign would surely have opposed
me had I been going to evil and not to good.

Let us reflect in another way, and we shall see that there is great
reason to hope that death is a good, for one of two things: either death
is a state of nothingness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men say,
there is a change and migration of the soul from this world to another.
Now if you suppose that there is no consciousness, but a sleep like the
sleep of him who is undisturbed even by the sight of dreams, death will
be an unspeakable gain. For if a person were to select the night in
which his sleep was undisturbed even by dreams, and were to compare with
this the other days and nights of his life, and then were to tell us how
many days and nights he had passed in the course of his life better and
more pleasantly than this one, I think that any man, I will not say a
private man, but even the great king will not find many such days or
nights, when compared with the others. Now if death is like this, I say
that to die is gain; for eternity is then only a single night. But if
death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say, all the
dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be greater than this?
If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world below, he is delivered
from the professors of justice in this world, and finds the true judges
who are said to give judgment there, Minos and Rhadamanthus, and, AEacus,
and Triptolemus, and other sons of God who were righteous in their own
life, that pilgrimage will be worth making. What would not a man give if
he might converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer? Nay, if
this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a wonderful
interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes, and Ajax the
son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have suffered death through
an unjust judgment; and there will be no small pleasure, as I think, in
comparing my own sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall be able to
continue my search into true and false knowledge; as in this world, so
also in that; I shall find out who is wise, and who pretends to be wise,
and is not. What would not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine
the leader of the great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or
numberless others, men and women too? What infinite delight would there
be in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that world
they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For besides
being happier in that world than in this, they will be immortal, if what
is said is true.

Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a
truth--that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after
death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my own
approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly that to die
and be released was better for me; and therefore the oracle gave no
sign. For which reason, also, I am not angry with my accusers or my
condemners; they have done me no harm, although neither of them meant to
do me any good; and for this I may gently blame them.

Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I would
ask you, O my friends, to punish them, and I would have you trouble
them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about riches, or
anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be something
when they are really nothing,--then reprove them, as I have reproved
you, for not caring about that for which they ought to care, and
thinking that they are something when they are really nothing. And if
you do this, I and my sons will have received justice at your hands.

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways--I to die, and you
to live. Which is better God only knows.

* * * * *


_Be of good cheer then, my dear Crito, and say that you
are burying my body only._

_Socrates, in the_ PHAEDO.--PLATO.




LXXXVI. THE EMPIRE OF THE CAESARS.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.--1818-

_From_ CAESAR.


Of Caesar it may be said that he came into the world at a special time
and for a special object. The old religions were dead, from the Pillars
of Hercules to the Euphrates and the Nile, and the principles on which
human society had been constructed were dead also. There remained of
spiritual conviction only the common and human sense of justice and
morality; and out of this sense some ordered system of government had to
be constructed, under which quiet men could live, and labor, and eat the
fruit of their industry. Under a rule of this material kind there can be
no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly aspirations, no patriotism of the
heroic type. It was not to last forever. A new life was about to dawn
for mankind. Poetry, and faith, and devotion were to spring again out of
the seeds which were sleeping in the heart of humanity. But the life
which is to endure grows slowly; and as the soil must be prepared before
the wheat can be sown, so before the Kingdom of Heaven could throw up
its shoots there was needed a kingdom of this world where the nations
were neither torn in pieces by violence nor were rushing after false
ideals and spurious ambitions. Such a kingdom was the Empire of the
Caesars--a kingdom where peaceful men could work, think, and speak as
they pleased, and travel freely among provinces ruled for the most part
by Gallios who protected life and property, and forbade fanatics to tear
each other in pieces for their religious opinions. "It is not lawful for
us to put any man to death," was the complaint of the Jewish priests to
the Roman governor. Had Europe and Asia been covered with independent
nations, each with a local religion represented in its ruling powers,
Christianity must have been stifled in its cradle. If St. Paul had
escaped the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, he would have been torn to pieces by
the silversmiths at Ephesus. The appeal to Caesar's judgment-seat was the
shield of his mission, and alone made possible his success.

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