Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/277

Rh Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all aglow;

Men hung upon the taffrail half scorched, but loth to go;

Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not quit his chair.

He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him bleeding there

The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen lowered boats,

They flung us planks and hen-coops, and everything that floats.

They risked their lives, good fellows! to bring their rivals aid.

'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely made.

La Surveillante was like a sieve; the victors had no rest;

They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of Brest.

And where the waves leapt lower and the riddled ship went slower,

In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisherboats to tow her.

They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead;

And as the wounded captives passed each Breton bowed the head.