Page:Poems and ballads, third series (IA poemsballadsthir00swin).pdf/63

If haply some light be left them of chance to renew and
redeem the fray;
But the will of the black south-wester is lord of the
councils of war to-day.
One only spirit it quells not, a splendour undarkened of
chance or time;
Be the praise of his foes with Oquendo for ever, a name
as a star sublime.
But here what aid in a hero's heart, what help in his hand
may be?
For ever the dark wind whitens and blackens the hollows
and heights of the sea,
And galley by galley, divided and desolate, founders; and
none takes heed,
Nor foe nor friend, if they perish; forlorn, cast off in
their uttermost need,
They sink in the whelm of the waters, as pebbles by
children from shoreward hurled,
In the North Sea's waters that end not, nor know they a
bourn but the bourn of the world.