C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Song of the Sea
By William Maginn (1794–1842)
I
When England’s glorious flag must bend, and yield old Ocean’s sway;
When foreign ships shall o’er that deep, where she is empress, lord;
When the cross of red from boltsprit-head is hewn by foreign sword;
When foreign foot her quarter-deck with proud stride treads along;
When her peaceful ships meet haughty check from hail of foreign tongue:
One prayer, one only prayer is mine,—that ere is seen that sight,
Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!
Where Howard, Blake, and Frobisher the Armada smote of Spain;
Where Blake, in Cromwell’s iron sway, swept tempest-like the seas,
From North to South, from East to West, resistless as the breeze;
Where Russell bent great Louis’s power, which bent before to none,
And crushed his arm of naval strength, and dimmed his Rising Sun:
One prayer, one only prayer is mine,—that ere is seen that sight,
Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!
Where Rodney met the Count de Grasse, and broke the Frenchman’s line;
Where Howe upon the first of June met the Jacobins in fight,
And with old England’s loud huzzas broke down their godless might;
Where Jervis at St. Vincent’s felled the Spaniards’ lofty tiers,
Where Duncan won at Camperdown, and Exmouth at Algiers:
One prayer, one only prayer is mine,—that ere is seen that sight,
Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!
The flower of all the Admirals that ever trod the sea!
I shall not name thy honored name; but if the white-cliffed Isle
Which reared the Lion of the deep, the Hero of the Nile,—
Him who ’neath Copenhagen’s self o’erthrew the faithless Dane,
Who died at glorious Trafalgar, o’ervanquished France and Spain,—
Should yield her power, one prayer is mine,—that ere is seen that sight,
Ere there be warning of that woe, I may be whelmed in night!