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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341859" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Phantom Fleet</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The sunset lingered in the pale green West:<br>In rosy wastes the low soft evening star<br>Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;<br>And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes<br>The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,<br>And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,<br>The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From oaken frames old admirals looked down:<br>They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:<br>They saw the paper, headed _Talk from Town;<br>Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet_:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song<br>Of England laughing in the face of war,<br>With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,<br>And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room,<br>Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam;<br>Around him in the softly coloured gloom<br>The pictures clustered slowly to a dream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">He saw how England, resting on her past,<br>Among the faded garlands of her dead,<br>Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last,<br>And once again she raised her steel-clad head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms;<br>She heard the westering waters change and chime;<br>She heard the distant tumult of her arms<br>Defeated, not by courage, but by Time.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death,<br>Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond:<br>Slowly approached--and Britain held her breath--<br>The battle booming from the deeps beyond.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind,<br>Threatening the torch that Britain held on high?<br>Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind,<br>Slunk backward, snarling in their agony!<br>_Who guards the gates of Freedom now?_ The cry<br>Stabbed heaven! _England, the shattered ramparts fall!_<br>Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky<br>O, like white lightning rending the black pall<br>Of heaven, an answer pealed: _Her dead shall hear that call._</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then came a distant light of great waves breaking<br>That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest,<br>A rumour as of buried ages waking,<br>And mighty spirits rising from their rest;<br>Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast,<br>White clouds that turned to sails upon their way,<br>Red clouds that burned like flags against the West,<br>Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay<br>Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">_We come to fight for Freedom!_ The great East<br>Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil.<br>Host upon host out of the night increased<br>Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail:<br>_England, our England, canst thou faint or fail?<br>We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!_<br>This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale<br>Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore<br>By right of the red life they never feared to pour.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">_We come to fight for Freedom!_ On they came,<br>One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea;<br>And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame<br>That star-born signal of the Victory:<br>_Duty_, that deathless lantern of the free;<br>_Duty_, that makes a god of every man.<br>And there was Nelson, watching silently<br>As through the phantom fleet the message ran;<br>And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind,<br>Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe:<br>And England's Raleigh followed hard behind,<br>With all his eager fighting heart aglow;<br>Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know<br>The old joy of battle and contempt of pain;<br>Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so,<br>The traitor's and the coward's death again;<br>But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there were all those others, Drake and Blake,<br>Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood;<br>With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake,<br>As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,--<br>Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood;<br>And there, once more, each rushing oaken side<br>Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood<br>Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died<br>Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">_We come to fight for England!_ The great sea<br>In a wild light of song began to break<br>Round that tall phantom of the Victory<br>And all the foam was music in her wake:<br>Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake<br>And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast<br>Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make<br>A shield for England of her own dead past;<br>But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">_We come to die for England_: through the hush<br>Of gathered nations rose that regal cry,<br>From naked oaken walls one word could crush<br>If those vast armoured throats dared to reply:<br>But there the most implacable enemy<br>Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears,<br>As Nelson's calm eternal face went by,<br>Gazing beyond all perishable fears<br>To some diviner goal above the waste of years.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away,<br>Then slowly turned once more to that deep West,<br>While voices cried, O, England, the new day<br>Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine<br>By right of toil on every land and sea<br>And by that crimson sacrificial wine<br>Of thine own heart and thine own agony.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour,<br>Throbs like the heart of music. This alone<br>Can save thy heritage and confirm that power<br>Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look to the fleet! Again and yet again,<br>Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry.<br>Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain,<br>To hold thy seas before thee, and to die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line:<br>The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield,<br>Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine,<br>Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old<br>Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears.<br>Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled<br>The sad returning pageant of the years.<br>On tides of light, where all our tumults cease,<br>Through that rich West, the Victory returned;<br>And all the waves around her whispered 'peace,'<br>And from her mast no battle-message burned.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies,<br>The pageant passed, with all its misty spars,<br>While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes<br>To that great light which brings the end of wars.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned,<br>Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light<br>Each with a sovran stillness haloed round.<br>Then--that high fleet of stars led on the night.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Alfred+Noyes">Alfred Noyes</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=341859" data-title="The Phantom Fleet de Alfred Noyes" data-description="The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes
The light streame..."></div>
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