Marchaunt Adventurers, O, what'ull ye bring home again?-- Wonders and works and the thunder of the sea! Whom will ye traffic with?--The King of the Sunset! What shall be your pilot then?--A wind from Galilee. Nay, but ye be marchaunts, will ye come back empty-handed?-- Ay, we be marchaunts, though our gain we ne'er shall see. Cast we now our bread upon the waste wild waters. After many days, it shall return with usury.
_Chorus:_ Marchaunt Adventurers! Marchaunt Adventurers!
What shall be your profit in the mighty days to be?-- Englande!--Englande!--Englande!--Englande!-- Glory everlasting and the lordship of the sea!
And there, framed in the lilac patch of sky That ended the steep street, dark on its light, And standing on those glistering cobblestones Just where they took the sunset's kiss, I saw A figure like foot-feathered Mercury, Tall, straight and splendid as a sunset-cloud.
Clad in a crimson doublet and trunk-hose, A rapier at his side; and, as he paused, His long fantastic shadow swayed and swept Against my feet.
A moment he looked back, Then swaggered down as if he owned a world Which had forgotten--did I wake or dream?-- Even his gracious ghost!
Over his arm He swung a gorgeous murrey-coloured cloak Of Ciprus velvet, caked and smeared with mud As on the day when--did I dream or wake? And had not all this happened once before?-- When he had laid that cloak before the feet Of Gloriana! By that mud-stained cloak, 'Twas he! Our Ocean-Shepherd! Walter Raleigh! He brushed me passing, and with one vigorous thrust Opened the door and entered. At his heels I followed--into the Mermaid!--through three yards Of pitch-black gloom, then into an old inn-parlour Swimming with faces in a mist of smoke That up-curled, blue, from long Winchester pipes, While--like some rare old picture, in a dream Recalled--quietly listening, laughing, watching, Pale on that old black oaken wainscot floated One bearded oval face, young, with deep eyes, Whom Raleigh hailed as "Will!"
But as I stared A sudden buffet from a brawny hand Made all my senses swim, and the room rang With laughter as upon the rush-strewn floor My feet slipped and I fell. Then a gruff voice Growled over me--"Get up now, John-a-dreams, Or else mine host must find another drawer! Hast thou not heard us calling all this while?" And, as I scrambled up, the rafters rang With cries of "Sack! Bring me a cup of sack! Canary! Sack! Malmsey! and Muscadel!" I understood and flew. I was awake, A leather-jerkined pot-boy to these gods, A prentice Ganymede to the Mermaid Inn!