They shall see our maidens dress our bowers,
While the hooni shines on their sunny brows.

Who shall mourn when, red with slaughter,
Finow sits on the funeral stone?

Who shall weep for his dying daughter?
Who shall answer the red chief's moan?

He shall cry unheard by the funeral stone,
He shall sink unseen by the split canoe,
Though the plantain-bird be his alone,
And the thundering gods of Fanfonnoo.

Let us not think 't is but an hour

Ere the wreath shall drop from the warrior's waist; Let us not think 't is but an hour

We have on our perfumed mats to waste.

Shall we not banquet, though Tonga's king
To-morrow may hurl the battle-spear?

Let us whirl our torches, and tread the ring, -
He only shall find our footprints here.

We will dive,

and the turtle's track shall guide Our way to the cave where Hoonga dwells, Where under the tide he hides his bride, And lives by the light of its starry shells.

Come to Licoo! in yellow skies

The sun shines bright, and the wild waves play; To-morrow for us may never rise;

Come to Licoo to-day, to-day.

Anonymous.

VARIOUS ISLANDS.

14441

A

Azores.

THE REVENGE.

A BALLAD OF THE FLEET, 1591.

T Flores in the Azores Sir Richard Grenville lay,
And a pinnace, like a fluttered bird, came flying

from far away:

Spanish ships of war at sca! we have sighted fiftythree!"

Then sware Lord Thomas Howard: ""Fore God I am no coward;

But I cannot meet them here, for my ships are out

of gear,

And the half my men are sick. I must fly, but follow

quick.

We are six ships of the line; can we fight with fiftythree?"

Then spake Sir Richard Grenville: "I know you are no coward;

You fly them for a moment to fight with them again.

But I've ninety men and more that are lying sick

ashore.

I should count myself the coward if I left them, my Lord Howard,

To these Inquisition dogs and the devildoms of Spain."

So Lord Howard past away with five ships of war that day,

Till he melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven; But Sir Richard bore in hand all his sick men from the

land

Very carefully and slow,

Men of Bidford in Devon,

And we laid them on the ballast down below;

For we brought them all aboard,

And they blest him in their pain, that they were not left to Spain,

To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.

He had only a hundred seamen to work the ship and

to fight,

And he sailed away from Flores till the Spaniard came

in sight,

With his huge sea-castles heaving upon the weather

'Shall we fight or shall we fly?

Good Sir Richard, let us know,

For to fight is but to die!

There'll be little of us left by the time the sun be set."

And Sir Richard said again :

"We be all good Eng

lishmen.

Let us bang these dogs of Seville, the children of the

devil,

For I never turned my back upon Don or devil yet."

Sir Richard spoke, and he laughed, and we roared a hurrah, and so

The little "Revenge" ran on sheer into the heart of the foe,

With her hundred fighters on deck, and her ninety sick

below;

For half of their fleet to the right and half to the left

were seen,

And the little "Revenge" ran on through the long sealane between.

Thousands of their soldiers looked down from their decks and laughed,

Thousands of their seamen made mock at the mad little craft

Running on and on, till delayed

By their mountain-like "San Philip" that, of fifteen hundred tons,

And up-shadowing high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,

Took the breath from our sails, and we stayed.

And while now the great "San Philip" hung above us like a cloud

Whence the thunderbolt will fall

Long and loud,

Four galleons drew away

From the Spanish fleet that day,

And two upon the larboard and two upon the starboard lay,

And the battle-thunder broke from them all.

But anon the great "San Philip," she bethought herself and went,

Having that within her womb that had left her illcontent;

And the rest they came aboard us, and they fought us hand to hand,

For a dozen times they came with their pikes and musqueteers,

And a dozen times we shook 'em off as a dog that shakes his ears

When he leaps from the water to the land.

And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea,

But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons came,

Ship after ship, the whole night long, with her battlethunder and flame;

Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and her shame;

For some were sunk and many were shattered, and so could fight us no more

God of battles, was ever a battle like this in the world

before?