Amid the loud ebriety of War,
With shouts of ‘La RÉpublique’ and ‘La Gloire,’
The Vengeur’s crew, ’twas said, with flying flag
And broadside blazing level with the wave
Went down erect, defiant, to their grave
Beneath the sea! ’Twas but a Frenchman’s brag,
Yet Europe rang with it for many a year.
Now we recount no fable; Europe, hear!
And when they tell thee ‘England is a fen
‘Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay,
‘Her nerveless burghers lying an easy prey
‘For the first comer,’ tell how the other day
A crew of half a thousand Englishmen
Went down into the deep in Simon’s Bay!
Not with the cheer of battle in the throat,
Or cannon-glare and din to stir their blood,
But, roused from dreams of home to find their boat
Fast sinking, mustered on the deck they stood,
Biding God’s pleasure and their chief’s command.
Calm was the sea, but not less calm that band
Close ranged upon the poop, with bated breath
But flinching not though eye to eye with Death!
Heroes! Who were those heroes? Veterans steeled
To face the King of Terrors ’mid the scaith
Of many a hurricane and trenchÈd field?
Far other: weavers from the stocking-frame;
Boys from the plough; cornets with beardless chin,
But steeped in honour and in discipline!
Weep, Britain, for the Cape whose ill-starred name,
Long since divorced from Hope suggests but shame,
Disaster, and thy captains held at bay
By naked hordes; but as thou weepest, thank
Heaven for those undegenerate sons who sank
Aboard the Birkenhead in Simon’s Bay!
Sir Henry Yule.
