III

Three caravels, a cross upon the prow, A broad cross on the banner and the sail, The liquid fields of Hesperus should plough Borne by the leaping waters and the gale.

Before that sign all hellish powers should quail Troubling the deep: no dragon's obscene crest, No serpent's slimy coils should aught avail, Till ivory cities looming in the west

Should gleam from high Cathay or Araby the Blest. Then, as with noble mien and debonair The captains from the galleys leapt to land, Or down the temple's alabaster stair

Or by the river's marge of silvery sand, Proud Sultans should descend with outstretched hand Greeting the strangers, and by them apprised Of Christ's redemption and the Queen's command,

Being with joy and gratitude baptized, Should lavish gifts of price by rarest art devised. Or if ( since churls there be ) they should demur To some least point of fealty or faith,

A champion, clad in arms from crest to spur, Should challenge the proud caitiffs to their death And, singly felling them, from their last breath Extort confession that the Lord is lord,

And India's Catholic queen, Elizabeth. Whereat yon turbaned tribes, with one accord, Should beat their heathen breasts and ope their treasures’ hoard. Or, if the worst should chance and high debates

Should end in insult and outrageous deed, And, many Christians rudely slain, their mates Should summon heaven to their direful need, Suddenly from the clouds a snow-white steed

Bearing a dazzling rider clad in flames Should plunge into the fray: with instant speed Rout all the foe at once, while mid acclaims The slaughtered braves should rise, crying, Saint James! Saint James!

Then, the day won, and its bright arbiter Vanished, save for peace he left behind, Each in his private bosom should bestir His dearest dream: as that perchance there pined

Some lovely maiden of angelic mind In those dark towers, awaiting out of Spain Two Saviours that her horoscope divined Should thence arrive. She ( womanlike ) were fain

Not to be wholly free, but wear a chosen chain. That should be youth's adventure. Riper days Would crave the guerdon of a prouder power And pluck their nuggets from an earthly maze

For rule and dignity and children's dower. And age that thought to near the fatal hour Should to a magic fount descend instead, Whose waters with the fruit revive the flower

And deck in all its bloom the ashen head, Where a green heaven spreads, not peopled of the dead.