Royal Oak and Pallas out of

Water roll'd their garboard strakes; Let us thank our stars, good people, We weren't there, for all our sakes.

X.

And they say the Lord High Admiral's
Stately ship the Agincourt

Roll'd twice ten degrees to starboard,

And just twenty-two to port,

In a series of continuous

Swings, and also took in water

Through her main-deck and stern gun-ports, Giving the poor man no quarter.

XI.

But the longest day is over

When the bird sinks to her rest,

And the longest gale must blow out,
Though it blow like all possest.

Scatter'd, batter'd, pitching, rolling,
Straggling like a flock of geese,
The Fleet opens Belem Castle,
And the day's disasters cease.

XII.

Once again to sea put Childers,
For it doth not yet appear
How he could without so doing

Rendezvous at far Cape Clear.

And the storm he said he'd look for
Came upon him in the bay,
On the eighteenth of September,
In the morning of the day.

XIII.

And the Agincourt so stately
Had to steer her, fifty men:
Fourteen at the helm, the rest at
The relieving tackles, then

At ten thirty sharp she shipp'd a

Sea that in a brace of shakes Sent the ward-room mess a-flying,

Burst the cutter's garboard strakes,

XIV.

Hanging on her starboard davits,
And, as I'm oblig'd to learn,
Drown'd the cabins too, and well nigh
Clear'd the ship from stem to stern.
And it almost seem'd the moment
For the High' to steer the ship
Had arriv'd, and show his knowledge
And undoubted seamanship.

XV.

But the wind most opportunely

Moderated, and the Fleet,

Scatter'd o'er a black horizon,

Promptly found the change a treat

Though e'en then, in spite of easement,
Dinner was most difficult;

And the Lord High Admiral tried it,

With a very lame result.

XVI.

As great Virgil stoops to gossip,
And describes with reverent glee,
How the helmsman got a header
And was wash'd away to sea;
How the billows this and that ship,
That and this way wildly tost,
With the names of all the galleys,
And the gentlemen were lost*__

* "Unam, quæ Lycios fidumque vehebat Oronten, Ipsius ante oculos ingens a vertice pontus

In puppim ferit: excutitur pronusque magister

XVII.

So the bard that Childers' actions

Would trustworthily portray,
Cannot leave the fact unnoticed

How the capstan-bar fetched way
In the storm, and straight proceeded
To divide itself in twain

'Gainst the back of a marine's head,
Who yet lives to fight again.

Volvitur in caput: ast illam ter fluctus ibidem

Torquet agens circum, et rapidus vorat æquore vortex."

Eneidos, lib. i. line 117.

"Et quâ vectus Abas, et quâ grandævus Aletes,

Vicit hiems."

Ibid., line 125.

66

'Præcipue pius Æneas, nunc acris Oronti,

Nunc Amyci casum gemit, et crudelia secum

Fata Lyci, fortemque Gyan, fortemque Cloanthum."

Ibid., line 224.