You should have seen him as he stood

Fighting for his good land,

With all the iron of soul and blood
Turned to a sword in hand.

The Nelson touch his men he taught,
And his great stride to keep;
His faithful fellows round him fought
Ten thousand heroes deep.

With a red pride of life, and hot
For him, their blood ran free;
They "minded not the showers of shot,
No more than peas," said he.

Napoleon saw our sea-king thwart

His landing on our isle;

He gnashed his teeth, he gnawed his heart,

At Nelson of the Nile,

Who set his fleet in flames, to light

The lion to his prey,

And lead Destruction through the night

Upon his dreadful way.

Oh, he could do the deeds that set

Old fighters' hearts a-fire;

The edge of every spirit whet,

And every arm inspire.
Yet I have seen upon his face

The tears that, as they roll,
Show what a light of saintly grace
May clothe a sailor's soul.

And when our darling went to meet
Trafalgar's Judgment Day,

The people knelt down in the street
To bless him on his way.

He felt the country of his love
Watching him from afar ;

It saw him through the battle move:
His heaven was in that star.

Magnificently glorious sight

It was in that great dawn!
Like one vast sapphire flashing light,
The sea, just breathing, shone.
Their ships, fresh painted, stood up tall
And stately ours were grim
And weatherworn, but one and all
In rare good fighting trim.

Our spirits all were flying light,
And into battle sped,

Straining for it on wings of might,
With feet of springy tread;
The battle light on every face;

Its fire in every eye;
Our sailor blood at swiftest pace
To catch the victory nigh.

His proudly wasted face, wave-worn,
Was loftily serene;

I felt the brave, bright spirit burn

There, all too plainly seen;

As though the sword this time was drawn
For ever from the sheath;

And when its work to-day was done,
All would be dark in death.

Mast-high the famous signal ran;
Breathless we caught each word:
"England expects that every man
Will do his duty." Lord,

You should have seen our faces! heard
Us cheering, row on row;
Like men before some furnace stirred

To a fiery fearful glow!

We grimly kept our vanward path;
Over us hummed their shot;
But, silently, we reined our wrath,
Held on, and answered not,
Till we could grip them face to face,
And pound them for our own,
Or hug them in a war embrace,
Till they or we went down.

How calm he was! when first he felt
The sharp edge of that fight,
Cabined with God alone he knelt;
The prayer still lay in light
Upon his face, that used to shine
In battle flash with life,

As though the glorious blood ran wine,
Dancing with that wild strife.

And four hours after, he had done
With winds and troubled foam.
The Reaper was borne dead upon
Our load of harvest home.
Not till he knew the old flag flew
Alone on all the deep;

Then said he, "Hardy, is that you?
Kiss me." And fell asleep.

Well, 'twas his chosen death, below
The deck in triumph trod;

'Tis well. A sailor's soul should go
From his good ship to God.
He would have chosen death aboard,
From all the crowns of rest;
And burial with the patriot's sword
Upon the victor's breast.

YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND

THOMAS CAMPBELL

THE victory of Trafalgar destroyed the French and Spanish fleets and secured to Britain the mastery of the seas. There was no further fear of invasion for the island kingdom. Her only rival, the United States, was three thousand miles distant.

I

Ye Mariners of England

That guard our native seas.

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe :

And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long
And the stormy winds do blow.

II

The spirits of your fathers

Shall start from every wave

For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave:

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,
As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

III

Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak

She quells the floods below

As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow; When the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.