Whether in velvet white, slashed, and be-pearled,
And rich in knots of clustering gems a-glow:
Or, in his rusted armor, he unfurled
St. George's Cross by Oronoko's flow;
He was a man to note right well as one
Who shot his arrows straightway at the sun.
Dark was his hair, his beard all crisp and curled.
And narrow-lidded were his piercing eyes,
Anhungered in their glances for a world
That he might win by daring enterprise,—
Explorer, soldier, scholar, poet, he
Not only wrote but acted historie!—
And that great Captain, of our Saxon stock,
Took his last slumber on the ghastly block!