And the swordsmen that served and the seamen that sped them, whom peril could tame not or tire,

Were as foam on the winds of the waters of England which tempest can tire not or tame.

III

They were girded about with thunder, and lightning came forth of the rage of their strength,

And the measure that measures the wings of the storm was the breadth of their force and the length:

And the name of their might was Invincible, covered and clothed with the terror of God;

With his wrath were they winged, with his love were they fired, with the speed of his winds were they shod;

With his soul were they filled, in his trust were they comforted: grace was upon them as night,

And faith as the blackness of darkness: the fume of their balefires was fair in his sight,

The reek of them sweet as a savour of myrrh in his nostrils: the world that he made,

Theirs was it by gift of his servants: the wind, if they spake in his name, was afraid,

And the sun was a shadow before it, the stars were astonished with fear of it: fire

Went up to them, fed with men living, and lit of men's hands for a shrine or a pyre;

And the east and the west wind scattered their ashes abroad, that his name should be blest

Of the tribes of the chosen whose blessings are curses from uttermost east unto west.

[Pg 189]

II

I

Hell for Spain, and heaven for England,—God to God, and man to man,—

Met confronted, light with darkness, life with death: since time began,

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