Page:Poems and ballads, third series (IA poemsballadsthir00swin).pdf/43

 All filled full of the war, full-fraught with battle and charged with bale; Then store-ships weighted with cannon; and all were an hundred and fifty sail. The measureless menace of darkness anhungered with hope to prevail upon light, The shadow of death made substance, the present and visible spirit of night, Came, shaped as a waxing or waning moon that rose with the fall of day, To the channel where couches the Lion in guard of the gate of the lustrous bay. Fair England, sweet as the sea that shields her, and pure as the sea from stain, Smiled, hearing hardly for scorn that stirred her the menace of saintly Spain.