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Talk:Battle of Trafalgar (view source)
Revision as of 04:05, February 28, 2009
, 04:05, February 28, 2009"The Old Superb" Couldn't resist it!
This is an excellent article!
This is an excellent article!
I can't resist this! One of [[Charles Villiers Stanford]]'s "Songs of the Fleet" (or "songs of the Sea" - I can't remember) from a poem by Sir Henry Newbolt, it's Brit triumphalism at its most glorious, and as the ship and its captain are mentioned in the article, I am putting it here for a day or two whilst thinking of tacking it onto the end of the Trafalgar article as a sort of "human interest" thing. (And any budding baritones could do worse than get the music and have a go.
:The wind was rising easterly, the morning sky was blue,
:The Straits before us open'd wide and free;
:We look'd towards the Admiral, where high the Peter flew,
:And all our hearts were dancing like the sea.
:The French are gone to Martinique with four-and-twenty sail,
:The "Old Superb" is old and foul and slow;
:But the French are gone to Martinique, and Nelson's on the trail,
:And where he goes the "Old Superb" must go.
::So Westward Ho! for Trinidad, and Eastward Ho! for Spain,
::And "Ship Ahoy!" a hundred times a day;
::Round the world if need be, and round the world again
::With a lame duck lagging, lagging all the way.
:The "Old Superb" was barnacled and green as grass below,
:Her sticks were only fit for stirring grog;
:The pride of all her midshipmen was silent long ago,
:And long ago they ceased to heave the log,
:Four year out from home she was, and ne'er a week in port,
:And nothing save the guns aboard her bright;
:But Captain Keats he knew the game, and swore to share the sport,
:For he never yet came in too late to fight.
::So Westward Ho! for Trinidad, and Eastward Ho! for Spain,
::And "Ship Ahoy!" a hundred times a day;
::Round the world if need be, and round the world again
::With a lame duck lagging, lagging all the way.
:"Now up, my lads," the Captain cried, "for sure the case were hard
:If longest out were first to fall behind;
:Aloft, aloft with studding sails, and lash them to the yard,
:For night and day the trades are driving blind."
:So all day long and all day long behind the fleet we crept,
:And how we fretted none but Nelson guessed;
:But ev'ry nigh the "Old Superb" she sailed when others slept,
:Till we ran the French to earth with all the rest!
::O 'twas Westward Ho! for Trinidad, and Eastward Ho! for Spain,
::And "Ship Ahoy!" a hundred times a day;
::Round the world if need be, and round the world again
::With a lame duck lagging, lagging all the way.