The Brunswick and the Vengeur: Glorious First of June

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YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND

YE Mariners of England!

That guard our native seas;

Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!

Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe.

And sweep through the deep,

While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,

And the stormy winds do blow.

The spirit of your fathers

Shall start from every wave!

For the deck it was their field of fame,
And Ocean was their grave.

Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,
Your manly hearts shall glow,

As ye sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

Britannia needs no bulwarks,

No towers along the steep;

Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep.

With thunders from her native oak,
She quells the floods below,-
As they roar on the shore,

When the stormy winds do blow;
When the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.

The meteor flag of England
Shall yet terrific burn;

Till danger's troubled night depart,
And the star of peace return.
Then, then, ye ocean warriors,
Our song and feast shall flow
To the fame of your name,

When the storm has ceased to blow;
When the fiery fight is heard no more

And the storm has ceased to blow.

THOMAS CAMPBELL.

THE BUILDING OF THE SHIP

Over the sea our galleys went,

With cleaving prows in order brave,
To a speeding wind and a bounding wave-
A gallant armament:

Each bark built out of a forest-tree

Left leafy and rough as first it grew,
And nailed all over the gaping sides,
Within and without, with black bull-hides,
Seethed in fat and suppled in flame
To bear the playful billows' game.

The Wanderers (ROBERT BROWNING)

I

THE BRITISH PERIOD

LONG ago, before the dawn of our history, when the wanderings of ancient tribes from east to west brought about the peopling of the British Islands, there must have arisen problems of shipbuilding and navigation of a serious nature. During the gradual crossing of the continent of Europe, nothing more difficult would present itself than the ferrying of rivers or fishing on inland waters. But the moment the shores of the North Sea and the Atlantic were reached, a check was given to the navigation which could only be overcome by the building of vessels large enough to transport whole families with their vehicles, cattle, and household utensils.