Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, A FAREWELL TO SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, by GEORGE PEELE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

A FAREWELL TO SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Have done with care, my hearts! Aboard amain
Last Line: Whose honour and whose glory you defend.
Subject(s): Drake, Sir Francis (1540-1596); English Invasion Of Portugal - 1589; Norris, Sir John (1547-1597)


HAVE done with care, my hearts! aboard amain,
With stretching sails to plough the swelling waves:
Bid England's shore and Albion's chalky cliffs
Farewell; bid stately Troynovant adieu,
Where pleasant Thames from Isis' silver head
Begins her quiet glide, and runs along
To that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts her course,
Near neighbour to the ancient stony Tower,
The glorious hold that Julius Cæsar built.
Change love for arms; girt-to your blades, my boys!
Your rests and muskets take, take helm and targe,
And let God Mars his consort make you mirth,—
The roaring cannon, and the brazen trump,
The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife,
The shrieks of men, the princely courser's neigh.
Now vail your bonnets to your friends at home:
Bid all the lovely British dames adieu,
That under many a standard well-advanc'd
Have hid the sweet alarms and braves of love;
Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukeley, and the rest,
Adieu. To arms, to arms, to glorious arms!
With noble Norris, and victorious Drake,
Under the sanguine cross, brave England's badge,
To propagate religious piety,
And hew a passage with your conquering swords
By land and sea, wherever Phœbus' eye,
Th' eternal lamp of heaven, lends us light;
By golden Tagus, or the western Inde,
Or through the spacious bay of Portugal,
The wealthy ocean-main, the Tyrrhene sea,
From great Alcides' pillars branching forth
Even to the gulf that leads to lofty Rome;
There to deface the pride of Antichrist,
And pull his paper walls and popery down,—
A famous enterprise for England's strength,
To steel your swords on Avarice' triple crown,
And cleanse Augeas' stalls in Italy.
To arms, my fellow soldiers! Sea and land
Lie open to the voyage you intend;
And sea or land, bold Britons, far or near,
Whatever course your matchless virtue shapes,
Whether to Europe's bounds, or Asian plains,
To Afric's shore, or rich America,
Down to the shades of deep Avernus' crags,
Sail on, pursue your honours to your graves:
Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads,
And every climate virtue's tabernacle.
To arms, to arms, to honourable arms!
Hoise sails, weigh anchors up, plough up the seas
With flying keels, plough up the land with swords:
In God's name venture on; and let me say
To you, my mates, as Cæsar said to his,
Striving with Neptune's hills; "You bear," quoth he,
"Cæsar and Cæsar's fortune in your ships."
You follow them, whose swords successful are:
You follow Drake, by sea the scourge of Spain,
The dreadful dragon, terror to your foes,
Victorious in his return from Inde,
In all his high attempts unvanquishèd;
You follow noble Norris, whose renown,
Won in the fertile fields of Belgia,
Spreads by the gates of Europe to the courts
Of Christian kings and heathen potentates.
You fight for Christ, and England's peerless queen,
Elizabeth, the wonder of the world,
Over whose throne the enemies of God
Have thunder'd erst their vain successless braves.
O, ten-times-treble happy men, that fight
Under the cross of Christ and England's queen,
And follow such as Drake and Norris are!
All honours do this cause accompany;
All glory on these endless honours waits:
These honours and this glory shall He send,
Whose honour and whose glory you defend.





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