New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-12-17
THE CRUISE OF THE ROVER
From The Magazine Of Art.

|
meet.
! Their sweethearts came and waved TO them and
filed with noise Of laughter
The eehoing port below the cliff, where thirty
Each lad cried ont, Farewell to thcep tho can
tain shouted after:
by Gods help we'l be back again before the
| harvest tide
They turned tive Start and slipped along with speedy
| wind and weather;
| Passed white TerceIra's battlements and cIosa
| upon the liue,
Ran down little carrack full Of cloth and silk and
| leath I,
And COLLEEN Popsh images and good Madeira
wine.
The crew, with tears and curses, went tackng back
10 Flores
The English forty cut the seas where none before
And spent the SultFy purploDghts in English songs
and stories
OF England and her soldiers and her spaniarl-
hating Queen.
At last the trade wind caught thom the pale sharks
reeled before them,
The little Rover SHOT ahead across the western
seas;
All night the larger compassof tropic sky passed
Oer mem,
Till they won the Mexique waters through
straight Of banyan-tTees.
And there good luck befell them, for divers times
The sails OF Spanish merchantmen bound homo.
ward with their wares
And twice they failed to follow them, and once they
stopped benighted;
But thrice the flag OF truce flew out, and the
scented prize was theirs.
But midsummer was on them, with clOse-reef gales
Their heavy vessel wallowed beneath her weight
Of QOld
long highway OF ocean kept them aud home
asunGcr,
SO back they Turned towards England with
richly laden hold.
But just outside Tampico man-of-war was riding,
And all the mad young English blood in forty
brains awOke,
The Rover chased the monster, and swiftly shore
wards gliding,
Dipped down beneath the caunonade that DER her
bulwaTk5 broke.
Three several DAYS they fought her. and pressed her
till she grounded
On the sandy isle Of Carmen where milky palm
Whereat she waved an ensign peaceful trumpet
sounded,
And all the spaniards cried for truce, surrender
ing In a row.
Alas! the wiles ard Jesutries Of scOundre-hearted
SpanardS
The Scarlet Woman dyes their hands in deeper
red than hers
For every scrap Of white that decked their tackng
and their lauyards
Just proved them sly like devils and cowardly
like ours
For ont from countless cOverts, from low palm
shaded Islands.
The pinnaces came gliding and hemmed them round
in silence,
All manned with Indian DraTo5 ana WnisAere1
dogs OF Spain.
The captain darted forwards his fair Lair strcamed
behind him,
lie shouted in his cherry voice, For home and
for the QueenW
Three time. be waved his gallant sword but the
flashes seemed to blind him,
And hard look came across his mouth, where
la,e a smile had been.
We levelled with our muskets and the foremost
The ships BOY seized trumpet and blew merry
BLAST
The Spanish rats held off while, and gazed at
But the hndmost pushed the foremost on, and
boarded us at last
They climbed the larbOard quarter with their
hatchets and their Sabres;
The Devon lads shot faStand hard, and sank their
But the Popish hordes were legion and Hercules his
Are iight beside the task to keep riddlcd bark
aiiOat.
And twenty men had fallen, and the Royers deck
And the brave young captain died III shouting
lOud "EiIZab-thW
The Soanars dra eyed the rest away just while the
Lest She should sink and rob them OF her sailors
tortured breath
For they destined them to pcrishin slow aud cruel
feast for monks and Jesuits too exquisite to
So they caught the English sailors rs they leapcd
And a troop Of morse as convoy brought them
north to Vera Cruz.
And led them up sparkling beach of burning sand
and coral -,
hounds within leash;
They passed beneath an open wood Of leaves that
smcIt OF laurel,
BOuUd close together, cacn 10 eacn, WIN COIuS
that cut the hesl.
And miles and mics along the coast they trampol
Till in tGsir mouths each rattling tongue was Ike
a hard, dry seed, -
And ere they came 10 vera Cruz Whch that long
day Was over.
Vince and Deed.
Then as thcy clambercl up the town, the jeering
crowd grew thicker,
and aaghsI TO sos rhoir swollen feet and figures
And women with their hair unloosel stood under
meath the iclicr
OF loren and swinging lantern. and cursed them
as they went
And three men died of WEAKNESS before they reached
Ard one frli shriekiug with tie pain Of poniard
And When dawu broke in the morning thr'e other
70 bear The Gcir LOrd witness OF the hoAi'"
SpanIard PACK.
But the monk; girt up their garments. the mars
bound their slnd& 5, f
The, hurried to The mdrhot-pace vita fasgoIscI
dry wood. . -
And the acOlytes came singing WIN tAeI lA0'"'
ana thcif candles, 80
To oier to taeir ina &c a sacrifice o. blood
But they sent The lecch 20 tend them with his pouch
and his long phill, ~ ..,ss
And thesJeslit3 calno smiling WITH honeye' "oi''
ut hlst ,.,. ,,,,a
For they dared not burn the heretics without some
snow Oi trial. ,I;-
and thirst.
100. chm, Jrou0Its of Yater from great