They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade,
O the wild charge they made!

All the world wonder'd. Honour the charge they made! Honour the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred!

The Revenge; A Ballad of the Fleet

AT Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,

And a pinnace, like a fluttered 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 passed 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 blessed him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain, To the thumb-screw and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and to fight

And he sailed 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, tell us now, For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time

this sun be set."

And Sir Richard said again: "We be all good English men.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the devil,

For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke and he laughed, and we roared 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 looked down from their decks and laughed, Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft Running on and on, till delayed 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 stayed.

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 ceased 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 her 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 shattered, 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
short summer night was gone,

With a grisly wound to be dressed he had left the deck,

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 feared that we still could sting, So they watched 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 maimed 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 ashore,

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 sea-men 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."

it suddenly dead,

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 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.

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 manned the Revenge with a swarthier alien crew,

And away she sailed with her loss, and longed for her own;

When a wind from the lands they had

ruined 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 shot-shattered navy of Spain, And the little Revenge herself went down by the island crags

To be lost evermore in the main.