Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE DRAGON OF THE SEAS, by THOMAS NELSON PAGE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE DRAGON OF THE SEAS, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: They say the spanish ships are out
Last Line: Has waked to life again.
Subject(s): Navy - Spain; Spanish-american War (1898); Spanish Navy


THEY say the Spanish ships are out
To seize the Spanish main;
Reach down the volume, boy, and read
The story o'er again.

How when the Spaniard had the might,
He drenched the earth, like rain,
With human blood, and made it death
To sail the Spanish main.

With torch and steel, and stake and rack,
He trampled out all truce,
Until Queen Bess her leashes slipt,
And turned her sea-dogs loose.

God! how they sprang! And how they tore!
The Grenvilles, Hawkins, Drake!
Remember, boy, they were your sires!
They made the Spaniard quake.

They sprang, like lions, for their prey,
Straight for the throat, amain!
By twos, by scores, where'er they caught
They fought the ships of Spain.

When Spain, in dark Ulloa's bay,
Broke doubly-plighted faith,
Bold Hawkins fought his way through fire
For great Elizabeth.

A bitter malt Spain brewed that day --
She drained it to the lees;
Her faithless guns that morn awoke
The Dragon of the Seas.

From sea to sea he ravaged far,
A scourge with flaming breath --
Where'er the Spaniard sailed his ships
Sailed Francis Drake and Death.

No port was safe against his ire,
Secure no furthest shore;
The fairest day oft sank in fire
Before the Dragon's roar.

He made th' Atlantic surges red
Round every Spanish keel;
Piled Spanish decks with Spanish dead,
The noblest of Castile.

From Del Fuego's beetling coast
To sleety Hebrides,
He hounded down the Spanish host,
And swept the flaming seas.

He fought till on Spain's inmost lakes
'Mid orange bowers set,
La Mancha's daughters feared to sail
Lest they the Dragon met.

King Philip, of his raven reft,
As forfeit claimed his head.
The great Queen laughed his wrath to scorn,
And knighted Drake instead,

And gave him ships and sent him forth
To clear the Spanish main
For England and for England's brood,
And sink the fleets of Spain.

And well he wrought his mighty work,
Till on that fatal day,
He met his only conqueror,
In Nombre Dios Bay.

There, in his shotted hammock swung,
Amid the surges' sweep,
He waits the lookouts' signal
Across the quiet deep.

And dreams of dark Ulloa's bay
And Spanish treachery;
And how he tracked Magellan far
Across the unknown sea.

But if Spain fires a single shot
Upon the Spanish main,
She'll come to deem the Dragon dead
Has waked to life again.





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