(122nd Anniversary)
GEORGE HILL (Baritone) and MALE VOICE CHORUS
IN any musical celebration of an event in our history at sea, some of Stanford's songs are sure to find a place, for his two cycles of Songs of the Sea, and Songs of the Fleet (the poems of which are by Sir Henry Newbolt) contain some of the best modern settings of sea songs.
The first song suggests the scene and the thoughts at the fleet's departure. Its refrain is :-
Now the fleet's a fleet again, bound upon the old ways,
Splendour of the past comes shining in the spray ;
Admirals of old time, bring us on the bold ways !
Souls of all the sea dogs, lead the line today ! The Little Admiral sings the praises of Drake. in whom all the powers of all the groat seamen seem to be combined, ' the little" man whose voice you never hear,' whose mind ' sees ahead so quick and clear,' [and who is 'worth at the very least double all your tons and all your guns.'
Farewell speaks a tender word of consolation to the motherland, whose sons died for her finding the secret of the word that saith
' Service is sweet, for all true life is death.'
Homeward Bound expresses the quiet joy at seeing again :—
The phantom skyline of a shadowv down,
Whose pale white cliffs below Thro' sunny mist aglow.
Like noonday ghosts of summer moonshine gleam.