Who knows but that great Allah
May grudge such matchless men,
With none so decked in heaven,
To the fiends' flaming den?'
Then all those gallant robbers
Shouted a stern 'Amen!'
They raised the slaughtered sergeant,
They raised his mangled ten.
And when we found their bodies
Left bleaching in the wind,
Around BOTH wrists in glory
That crimson thread was twined.
Then Napier's knightly heart, touched to the core,
Rung, like an echo, to that knightly deed,
He bade its memory live for evermore,
That those who run may read.
_Doyle._
XCVIII
HOME THOUGHTS FROM THE SEA
Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;
'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'--say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
_Browning._
XCIX
HERVE RIEL
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 thro' the blue,
Like a crowd of frightened porpoises a shoal of sharks pursue,
Came crowding ship on ship to St.
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