POETRY.

ADMIRAL BLARE.

(ArrousT 7T11, 1057.) Tns sixth it was of August, as we opened Lizard Bay,

Our Admiral called his Captains where he lay ; And, "Sirs," says he, "the end is come: I'll sail the seas no more;

Yet I pray the Lord to grant me die on shore."

Bear away.

Eleven ships we were, from up the Straits and from Sallee, All very foul with being long at sea

And our winter's block of Cadiz; aye, we sighed for our

recall, And he, a twelvemonth sick, beyond us all.

Bear away.

'Twas not a score of weeks agone, in Santa Cruz her bay,

We sank the Spanish galleons where they lay : All the treasure-ships of Spain, they are fired or run ashore,

—But our Admiral shall hear a gun no more.

Bear away.

"I am like to pass before we make the Downs, methinks,"

he said.

"Let my course be laid for land ere I be sped.

. • . Give ye God-speed . . . and see ye put his Highness in a mind To have a care for them we left behind."

Bear away.

So the 'George' stood in for Devon, and red came up the day While she held, with heeling deeks, upon her way.

As we cracked on sail for Plymouth, so we sought the Lord the more

That He would grant our Admiral die on shore. Bear away.

And as Blake lay in Lis cabin, 'twat the Mewstone and the Ranie, He remembered not his victories nor his fame ;

Not Tromp nor Teneriffe, not the Dutchman nor the Don,

But the pleasant English land . . . to die upon.

Bear away.

Y' had thought the Lord had hearkened us, so lusty did we pray, While our ship from off her forefoot tossed the spray; And with every stitch a-drawing, at seven knots or more, We came in press of sail to Plymouth shore.

Bear away.

Though he drave, at the Canaries, through Don Diego's battery smoke, Though on Plymouth Hoe was naught but cheering folk, Though he saw his own West-country, yet he might not have his boon —For our Admiral's flag was struck . . . an .hour too soon.

Bear away.

* * * * * * *

Much pomp there was and stateliness upon his funeral day, Guns a-firing from the Tower all the way ; Up the river then to Westminster, with many barges more, As he led the line in fight, he went before.

Bear away.

Yet better liked it seamen bad he fared less solemnly, And been buried in his hammock out at sea; Since the Lord Ho could not grant that valiant soul his last dema,ud Ile had best 'a' kept his body too from land. Bear away.

For ye shall seek his honoured tomb in the Abbey many a day : Ask royal Charles where he bath flung that clay !

—Aye, mark it, messmat,es, when ye think to conic and die ashore, Ye be certain of a grave on land DO more. . .

Bear away.

D. K. BROWI'Elt.