Robert Blake - General and Admiral of the Parliamentary Forces

What! will they sweep the channels,
    And brave us as they go!
There’s no place in English annals
    For the triumph of a foe.

Thus spoke the English admiral,
    His hand was on his sword;
Hurrah! was the sole answer
    From every man on board.

The Dutch came o’er the ocean,
    As if it were their home,
With a slow and gliding motion
    The stately vessels come.

The sky is blue above them,
    But ere an hour be past,
The shadows of the battle
    Will over heaven be cast

They meet—it is in thunder,
    The thunder of the gun;
Fire rends the smoke asunder,
    The battle is begun.

He stands amid his seamen,
    Our Admiral of the White,
And guides the strife more calmly,
    Than of that strife I write.

For over the salt water
    The grape-shot sweeps around;
The decks are red with slaughter,
    The dead are falling round.

But the bold flag of old England
    Flies bravely at the mast;
The Dutch take down their colours,
    While the cannons fire their last.

From that hour victorious
    Have we kept the seas,
And our navy glorious,
    Queens it o’er the breeze.

Long may we keep such empire,
    It is a noble debt
We owe to those past triumphs,
    We never may forget.

The victory over the Dutch was won by Admiral Blake in the time of the Protectorate. Von Tromp sailed into the channel with a broom at his masthead, intimating that he would sweep the seas of the English. The result is stated above.