III

The wings of the south-west wind are widened; the breath of his
fervent lips,
More keen than a sword's edge, fiercer than fire, falls full on the
plunging ships.
The pilot is he of their northward flight, their stay and their
steersman he;
A helmsman clothed with the tempest, and girdled with strength to
constrain the sea.
And the host of them trembles and quails, caught fast in his hand
as a bird in the toils;
For the wrath and the joy that fulfil him are mightier than man's,
whom he slays and spoils.
And vainly, with heart divided in sunder, and labour of wavering
will,
The lord of their host takes counsel with hope if haply their star
shine still,
If haply some light be left them of chance to renew and redeem the
fray;
But the will of the black south-wester is lord of the councils of
war to-day.
One only spirit it quells not, a splendour undarkened of chance or
time;
Be the praise of his foes with Oquendo for ever, a name as a star
sublime.
But here what aid in a hero's heart, what help in his hand may be?
For ever the dark wind whitens and blackens the hollows and heights
of the sea,
And galley by galley, divided and desolate, founders; and none
takes heed,
Nor foe nor friend, if they perish; forlorn, cast off in their
uttermost need,
They sink in the whelm of the waters, as pebbles by children from
shoreward hurled,
In the North Sea's waters that end not, nor know they a bourn but
the bourn of the world.
Past many a secure unavailable harbour, and many a loud stream's
mouth,
Past Humber and Tees and Tyne and Tweed, they fly, scourged on from
the south,
And torn by the scourge of the storm-wind that smites as a harper
smites on a lyre,
And consumed of the storm as the sacrifice loved of their God is
consumed with fire,
And devoured of the darkness as men that are slain in the fires of
his love are devoured,
And deflowered of their lives by the storms, as by priests is the
spirit of life deflowered.
For the wind, of its godlike mercy, relents not, and hounds them
ahead to the north,
With English hunters at heel, till now is the herd of them past the
Forth,
All huddled and hurtled seaward; and now need none wage war upon
these,
Nor huntsmen follow the quarry whose fall is the pastime sought of
the seas.
Day upon day upon day confounds them, with measureless mists that
swell,
With drift of rains everlasting and dense as the fumes of ascending
hell.
The visions of priest and of prophet beholding his enemies bruised
of his rod
Beheld but the likeness of this that is fallen on the faithful, the
friends of God.
Northward, and northward, and northward they stagger and shudder
and swerve and flit,
Dismantled of masts and of yards, with sails by the fangs of the
storm-wind split.
But north of the headland whose name is Wrath, by the wrath or the
ruth of the sea,
They are swept or sustained to the westward, and drive through the
rollers aloof to the lee.
Some strive yet northward for Iceland, and perish: but some through
the storm-hewn straits
That sunder the Shetlands and Orkneys are borne of the breath which
is God's or fate's:
And some, by the dawn of September, at last give thanks as for
stars that smile,
For the winds have swept them to shelter and sight of the cliffs of
a Catholic isle.
Though many the fierce rocks feed on, and many the merciless
heretic slays,
Yet some that have laboured to land with their treasure are
trustful, and give God praise.
And the kernes of murderous Ireland, athirst with a greed
everlasting of blood,
Unslakable ever with slaughter and spoil, rage down as a ravening
flood,
To slay and to flay of their shining apparel their brethren whom
shipwreck spares;
Such faith and such mercy, such love and such manhood, such hands
and such hearts are theirs.
Short shrift to her foes gives England, but shorter doth Ireland to
friends; and worse
Fare they that came with a blessing on treason than they that come
with a curse.
Hacked, harried, and mangled of axes and skenes, three thousand
naked and dead
Bear witness of Catholic Ireland, what sons of what sires at her
breasts are bred.
Winds are pitiful, waves are merciful, tempest and storm are kind:
The waters that smite may spare, and the thunder is deaf, and the
lightning is blind:
Of these perchance at his need may a man, though they know it not,
yet find grace;
But grace, if another be hardened against him, he gets not at this
man's face.
For his ear that hears and his eye that sees the wreck and the wail
of men,
And his heart that relents not within him, but hungers, are like as
the wolf's in his den.
Worthy are these to worship their master, the murderous Lord of
lies,
Who hath given to the pontiff his servant the keys of the pit and
the keys of the skies.
Wild famine and red-shod rapine are cruel, and bitter with blood
are their feasts;
But fiercer than famine and redder than rapine the hands and the
hearts of priests.
God, God bade these to the battle; and here, on a land by his
servants trod,
They perish, a lordly blood-offering, subdued by the hands of the
servants of God.
These also were fed of his priests with faith, with the milk of his
word and the wine;
These too are fulfilled with the spirit of darkness that guided
their quest divine.
And here, cast up from the ravening sea on the mild land's merciful
breast,
This comfort they find of their fellows in worship; this guerdon is
theirs of their quest.
Death was captain, and doom was pilot, and darkness the chart of
their way;
Night and hell had in charge and in keeping the host of the foes of
day.
Invincible, vanquished, impregnable, shattered, a sign to her foes
of fear,
A sign to the world and the stars of laughter, the fleet of the
Lord lies here.
Nay, for none may declare the place of the ruin wherein she lies;
Nay, for none hath beholden the grave whence never a ghost shall
rise.
The fleet of the foemen of England hath found not one but a
thousand graves;
And he that shall number and name them shall number by name and by
tale the waves.