PATRIOTIC SONG

PATRIOTIC SONG

A Book of English Verse

BEING AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE PATRIOTIC POETRY OF THE
BRITISH EMPIRE, FROM THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH
ARMADA TILL THE DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA

SELECTED AND ARRANGED BY
ARTHUR STANLEY

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
THE RIGHT REVEREND J. E. C. WELLDON
Lord Bishop of Calcutta; late Head-Master of Harrow School

TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS
1901

THIS BOOK
IS
Sacred to the Memory
OF
THAT GLORIOUS COMPANY OF MEN
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
WHO HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVES
FOR ENGLAND’S SAKE

EDITOR’S PREFACE

This book is intended to be a representative collection of the patriotic poetry of the British Empire. I have taken a wide view of the term “patriotic”—wide enough, indeed, to include the Jacobite Songs of Scotland and the National Songs of Ireland.

Many of my numbers breathe the spirit of war; for the national instinct is most deeply stirred in times of great national emotion. But I have aimed at making this volume something more than a book of war-songs, holding that a man may prove his patriotism as well at home in the pursuit of his daily business as on the battlefield in the presence of his country’s enemies. Love of country is the root of the matter; and, after all, it is harder to live for one’s country than to die for it.

I gratefully acknowledge the debt I owe to authors and owners of copyright poems. I am equally grateful to all who, whether at home or in the Colonies, have given me encouragement, assistance, or advice. My obligations to Professor Dowden, Mr. W. E. Henley, and Mr. A. T. Quiller-Couch are very great.

My scheme, as originally conceived, provided for the inclusion of a section representing the patriotism of America; but, on reconsideration, I have decided not to go beyond the limits of the British Empire.

A. S.

INTRODUCTION

The present collection of patriotic songs will, I think, accord with the imperial spirit of the day; for they are representative of the whole British Empire.

It is needless to dwell upon the inspiring energy of song. Since the age of Tyrtæus it has everywhere been recognised as a powerful incentive to valour. A nation can scarcely exist without a national anthem. How characteristic are the anthems of the nations! It may almost be said that the difference of the English and the French nations is expressed by the contrast between God Save the King and the Marseillaise. What an influence songs have exercised upon the life of nations! The debt of Scotland to Burns, the debt of Ireland to Moore, is greater than words can tell. Fletcher of Saltoun was perhaps not wrong in his estimate of the songs, as compared with the laws, of a nation.

I am not responsible for the present collection; perhaps, if I had made it, I should have left out some few songs which find a place in it, and should have inserted some few others which do not, but the purpose of it I heartily approve. To consolidate the Empire, and to animate it as a whole with noble ideas, is one of the greatest needs and duties of the present day; and an empire, like an individual, lives not by bread alone, but by its sentiments, its ambitions, its ideals.

J. E. C. CALCUTTA.

October 1901.

ERRATUM

Page xii, line 6, for ‘an admiral’ read ‘an individual.’

CONTENTS

I
ENGLAND

ANONYMOUS

I
SONG OF THE ENGLISH BOWMEN

Agincourt, Agincourt!
Know ye not Agincourt,
Where English slew and hurt
All their French foemen?
With their pikes and bills brown,
How the French were beat down,
Shot by our Bowmen!

Agincourt, Agincourt!
Know ye not Agincourt,
Never to be forgot,
Or known to no men?
Where English cloth-yard arrows
Killed the French like tame sparrows,
Slain by our Bowmen!

Agincourt, Agincourt!
Know ye not Agincourt?
English of every sort,
High men and low men,
Fought that day wondrous well,
All our old stories tell,
Thanks to our Bowmen!

Agincourt, Agincourt!
Know ye not Agincourt?
Where our fifth Harry taught
Frenchmen to know men:
And, when the day was done,
Thousands there fell to one
Good English Bowman!

Agincourt, Agincourt!
Know ye not Agincourt?
Dear was the vict’ry bought
By fifty yeomen.
Ask any English wench,
They were worth all the French:
Rare English Bowmen!

Anonymous.

PEELE

II
FAREWELL TO DRAKE AND NORRIS

Have done with care, my hearts! aboard amain,
With stretching sails to plough the swelling waves:
Now vail your bonnets to your friends at home:
Bid all the lovely British dames adieu!
To arms, my fellow-soldiers! Sea and land
Lie open to the voyage you intend.
To arms, to arms, to honourable arms!
Hoist sails; weigh anchors up; plough up the seas
With flying keels; plough up the land with swords!
You follow them whose swords successful are:
You follow Drake, by sea the scourge of Spain,
The dreadful dragon, terror to your foes,
Victorious in his return from Inde,
In all his high attempts unvanquishèd;
You follow noble Norris whose renown,
Won in the fertile fields of Belgia,
Spreads by the gates of Europe to the courts
Of Christian kings and heathen potentates.
You fight for Christ and England’s peerless Queen,
Elizabeth, the wonder of the world,
Over whose throne the enemies of God
Have thunder’d erst their vain successless braves,
O ten-times-treble happy men, that fight
Under the cross of Christ and England’s Queen,
And follow such as Drake and Norris are!
All honours do this cause accompany;
All glory on these endless honours waits;
These honours and this glory shall He send,
Whose honour and Whose glory you defend.

George Peele.

DRAYTON

III
BALLAD OF AGINCOURT

Fair stood the wind for France,
When we our sails advance,
Nor now to prove our chance
Longer will tarry;
But putting to the main,
At Caux, the mouth of Seine,
With all his martial train,
Landed King Harry.

And taking many a fort,
Furnished in warlike sort,
Marched towards Agincourt
In happy hour,
Skirmishing day by day
With those that stopped his way
Where the French gen’ral lay
With all his power:

Which, in his height of pride,
King Henry to deride,
His ransom to provide
To the king sending;
Which he neglects the while
As from a nation vile,
Yet with an angry smile
Their fall portending.

And turning to his men,
Quoth our brave Henry then,
’Though they to one be ten,
Be not amazèd.
Yet have we well begun,
Battles so bravely won
Have ever to the sun
By fame been raisèd.’

‘And for myself,’ quoth he,
‘This my full rest shall be:
England ne’er mourn for me,
Nor more esteem me;
Victor I will remain
Or on this earth lie slain;
Never shall she sustain
Loss to redeem me.’

‘Poitiers and Cressy tell,
When most their pride did swell,
Under our swords they fell;
No less our skill is
Than when our grandsire great,
Claiming the regal seat,
By many a warlike feat
Lopped the French lilies.’

The Duke of York so dread
The eager vaward led;
With the main Henry sped,
Amongst his henchmen;
Excester had the rear,
A braver man not there:
O Lord, how hot they were
On the false Frenchmen!

They now to fight are gone,
Armour on armour shone,
Drum now to drum did groan,
To hear was wonder;
That with the cries they make,
The very earth did shake,
Trumpet to trumpet spake,
Thunder to thunder.

Well it thine age became,
O noble Erpingham,
Which did the single aim
To our hid forces!
When from a meadow by,
Like a storm suddenly,
The English archery
Struck the French horses.

With Spanish yew so strong,
Arrows a cloth-yard long,
That like to serpents stung,
Piercing the weather;
None from his fellow starts,
But playing manly parts,
And like true English hearts
Stuck close together.

When down their bows they threw,
And forth their bilbos drew,
And on the French they flew,
Not one was tardy;
Arms were from shoulders sent,
Scalps to the teeth were rent,
Down the French peasants went;
Our men were hardy.

This while our noble king,
His broadsword brandishing,
Down the French host did ding
As to o’erwhelm it,
And many a deep wound lent,
His arms with blood besprent,
And many a cruel dent
Bruisèd his helmet.

Glo’ster, that duke so good,
Next of the royal blood,
For famous England stood,
With his brave brother;
Clarence, in steel so bright,
Though but a maiden knight,
Yet in that furious fight
Scarce such another!

Warwick in blood did wade,
Oxford the foe invade,
And cruel slaughter made,
Still as they ran up;
Suffolk his axe did ply,
Beaumont and Willoughby
Bare them right doughtily
Ferrers and Fanhope.

Upon St. Crispin’s Day
Fought was this noble fray,
Which fame did not delay,
To England to carry.
O, when shall Englishmen
With such acts fill a pen,
Or England breed again
Such a King Harry?

Michael Drayton.

IV
THE VIRGINIAN VOYAGE

You brave heroic minds
Worthy your country’s name,
That honour still pursue;
Go and subdue!
Whilst loitering hinds
Lurk here at home with shame.

Britons, you stay too long:
Quickly aboard bestow you,
And with a merry gale
Swell your stretch’d sail
With vows as strong
As the winds that blow you.

Your course securely steer
West and by south forth keep,
Rocks, lee-shores, nor shoals
When Æolus scowls
You need not fear,
So absolute the deep.

And cheerfully at sea
Success you shall entice
To get the pearl and gold,
And ours to hold
Virginia
Earth’s only paradise.

Where nature hath in store
Fowl, venison, and fish,
And the fruitfull’st soil
Without your toil
Three harvests more,
All greater than your wish.

And the ambitious vine
Crowns with his purple mass
The cedar reaching high
To kiss the sky,
The cypress, pine
And useful sassafras.

To whom the golden age
Still nature’s laws doth give,
Nor other cares attend
But them to defend
From winter’s rage,
That long there doth not live.

When as the luscious smell
Of that delicious land
Above the seas that flows
The clear wind throws
Your hearts to swell
Approaching the dear strand.

In kenning of the shore
(Thanks to God first given)
O you the happiest men,
Be frolic then!
Let cannons roar,
Frighting the wide heaven.

And in regions far,
Such heroes bring ye forth
As those from whom we came;
And plant our name
Under that star
Not known unto our north.

And as there plenty grows
Of laurel everywhere,—
Apollo’s sacred tree,—
You it may see
A poet’s brows
To crown that may sing there.

Thy voyages attend
Industrious Hackluit
Whose reading shall inflame
Men to seek fame,
And much commend
To after times thy wit.

Michael Drayton.

SHAKESPEARE

V
A PICTURE OF ENGLAND

This royal throne of kings, this sceptr’d isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear’d by their breed, and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry
Of the world’s ransom, blessed Mary’s Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear, dear land.

William Shakespeare.

VI
ENGLAND INVINCIBLE

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself,
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.

William Shakespeare.

VII
ENGLAND AT WAR

THE PREPARATION

Now all the youth of England are on fire,
And silken dalliance in the wardrobe lies:
Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought
Reigns solely in the breast of every man:
They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,
Following the mirror of all Christian kings,
With wingèd heels, as English Mercuries.
For now sits Expectation in the air,
And hides a sword from hilts unto the point
With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,
Promised to Harry and his followers.
The French, advised by good intelligence
Of this most dreadful preparation,
Shake in their fear and with pale policy
Seek to divert the English purposes.
O England! model to thy inward greatness,
Like little body with a mighty heart,
What mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,
Were all thy children kind and natural!

AT SEA

Thus with imagined wing our swift scene flies
In motion of no less celerity
Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen
The well-appointed king at Hampton Pier
Embark his royalty; and his brave fleet
With silken streamers the young Phœbus fanning:
Play with your fancies, and in them behold
Upon the hempen tackle ship-boys climbing;
Hear the shrill whistle which doth order give
To sounds confused; behold the threaden sails,
Borne with the invisible and creeping wind,
Draw the huge bottoms through the furrow’d sea,
Breasting the lofty surge: O, do but think
You stand upon the rivage and behold
A city on the inconstant billows dancing;
For so appears this fleet majestical,
Holding due course to Harfleur. Follow, follow:
Grapple your minds to sternage of this navy,
And leave your England, as dead midnight still,
Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women,
Either passed or not arrived to pith and puissance;
For who is he, whose chin is but enrich’d
With one appearing hair, that will not follow
These cull’d and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?

KING HARRY TO HIS SOLDIERS
(At the Siege of Harfleur)

‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace, there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspèct;
Let it pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it,
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’er hang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot;
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry “God for Harry, England, and Saint George!”’

THE EVE OF BATTLE

Now entertain conjecture of a time
When creeping murmur and the poring dark
Fills the wide vessel of the universe.
From camp to camp through the foul womb of night
The hum of either army stilly sounds,
That the fix’d sentinels almost receive
The secret whispers of each other’s watch:
Fire answers fire, and through their paly flames
Each battle sees the other’s umbered face;
Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs
Piercing the night’s dull ear; and from the tents
The armourers, accomplishing the knights,
With busy hammers closing rivets up,
Give dreadful note of preparation:
The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,
And the third hour of drowsy morning name.
Proud of their numbers and secure in soul,
The confident and over-lusty French
Do the low-rated English play at dice;
And chide the cripple, tardy-gaited night
Who, like a foul and ugly witch, doth limp
So tediously away. The poor condemned English,
Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires
Sit patiently and inly ruminate
The morning’s danger, and their gesture sad
Investing lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats,
Presenteth them unto the gazing moon
So many horrid ghosts. O now, who will behold
The royal captain of this ruin’d band
Walking from watch to watch, from tent to tent,
Let him cry ‘Praise and glory on his head!’
For forth he goes and visits all his host,
Bids them good morrow with a modest smile
And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.
Upon his royal face there is no note
How dread an army hath enrounded him;
Nor doth he dedicate one jot of colour
Unto the weary and all-watched night,
But freshly looks and over-bears attaint
With cheerful semblance and sweet majesty;
That every wretch, pining and pale before,
Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks:
A largess universal like the sun
His liberal eye doth give to everyone,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.
And so our scene must to the battle fly.

KING HARRY’S PRAYER

‘O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day, think not upon the fault
My father made in compassing the crown!
I Richard’s body have interred new;
And on it have bestow’d more contrite tears
Than from it issued forced drops of blood:
Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,
Who twice a-day their wither’d hands hold up
Toward heaven, to pardon blood; and I have built
Two chantries, where the sad and solemn priests
Sing still for Richard’s soul. More will I do;
Though all that I can do is nothing worth,
Since that my penitence comes after all,
Imploring pardon.’

St. Crispin’s Day at Agincourt
(King Harry to his Soldiers)

‘This day is called the feast of Crispian:
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is named,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say ‘To-morrow is saint Crispian:’
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
And gentlemen in England now abed,
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.’

THE WELCOME HOME

Now we bear the king
Toward Calais: grant him there; there seen,
Heave him away upon your winged thoughts
Athwart the sea. Behold, the English beach
Pales in the flood with men, with wives and boys,
Whose shouts and claps out-voice the deep-mouth’d sea,
Which like a mighty whiffler ’fore the king
Seems to prepare his way: so let him land,
And solemnly see him set on to London.
So swift a pace hath thought that even now
You may imagine him upon Blackheath,
Where that his lords desire him to have borne
His bruisèd helmet and his bended sword
Before him through the city: he forbids it,
Being free from vainness and self-glorious pride,
Giving full trophy, signal and ostent
Quite from himself to God. But now behold,
In the quick forge and working-house of thought,
How London doth pour out her citizens!
The mayor and all his brethren in best sort,
Like to the senators of the antique Rome,
With the plebeians swarming at their heels,
Go forth and fetch their conquering Cæsar in.

William Shakespeare.

VIII
WOLSEY TO CROMWELL

‘Cromwell, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me
Out of thy honest truth, to play the woman.
Let’s dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say, I taught thee,
Say, Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck, to rise in;
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss’d it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin’d me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by it?
Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee;
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,
Thy God’s, and truth’s; then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,
Thou fall’st a blessed martyr! Serve the king;
And,—Prithee, lead me in:
There take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny; ’tis the king’s: my robe,
And my integrity to heaven, is all
I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.’

William Shakespeare.

ANONYMOUS

IX
BRAVE LORD WILLOUGHBY

The fifteenth day of July,
With glistering spear and shield,
A famous fight in Flanders
Was foughten in the field:
The most conspicuous officers
Were English captains three,
But the bravest man in battel
Was brave Lord Willoughby.

The next was Captain Norris,
A valiant man was he:
The other, Captain Turner,
From field would never flee.
With fifteen hundred fighting men,
Alas! there were no more,
They fought with forty thousand then
Upon the bloody shore.

‘Stand to it, noble pikemen,
And look you round about:
And shoot you right, you bowmen,
And we will keep them out:
You musket and cailìver men,
Do you prove true to me,
I’ll be the bravest man in fight,’
Says brave Lord Willoughby.

And then the bloody enemy
They fiercely did assail,
And fought it out most valiantly
Not doubting to prevail:
The wounded men on both sides fell
Most piteous for to see,
Yet nothing could the courage quell
Of brave Lord Willoughby.

For seven hours to all men’s view
This fight endurèd sore,
Until our men so feeble grew
That they could fight no more;
And then upon dead horses
Full savourly they eat,
And drank the puddle water,
They could no better get.

When they had fed so freely,
They kneelèd on the ground,
And praisèd God devoutly
For the favour they had found;
And bearing up their colours,
The fight they did renew,
And cutting tow’rds the Spaniard,
Five thousand more they slew.

The sharp steel-pointed arrows
And bullets thick did fly,
Then did our valiant soldiers
Charge on most furiously:
Which made the Spaniards waver,
They thought it best to flee:
They feared the stout behaviour
Of brave Lord Willoughby.

Then quoth the Spanish general,
‘Come let us march away,
I fear we shall be spoilèd all
If that we longer stay:
For yonder comes Lord Willoughby
With courage fierce and fell,
He will not give one inch of ground
For all the devils in hell.’

And when the fearful enemy
Was quickly put to flight,
Our men pursued courageously
To rout his forces quite;
And at last they gave a shout
Which echoed through the sky:
‘God and Saint George for England!’
The conquerors did cry.

This news was brought to England
With all the speed might be,
And soon our gracious Queen was told
Of this same victory.
‘O! this is brave Lord Willoughby
My love that ever won:
Of all the lords of honour
’Tis he great deeds hath done!’

To the soldiers that were maimèd,
And wounded in the fray,
The Queen allowed a pension
Of eighteen pence a day,
And from all costs and charges
She quit and set them free;
And this she did all for the sake
Of brave Lord Willoughby.

Then courage, noble Englishmen,
And never be dismayed!
If that we be but one to ten,
We will not be afraid
To fight with foreign enemies,
And set our country free,
And thus I end the bloody bout
Of brave Lord Willoughby.

Anonymous.

X
THE HONOUR OF BRISTOL

Attend you, and give ear awhile,
And you shall understand
Of a battle fought upon the seas
By a ship of brave command.
The fight it was so glorious
Men’s hearts it did fulfil,
And it made them cry, ‘To sea, to sea,
With the Angel Gabriel!’

This lusty ship of Bristol,
Sailed out adventurously
Against the foes of England,
Her strength with them to try;
Well victualled, rigged, and manned she was,
With good provision still,
Which made them cry, ‘To sea, to sea,
With the Angel Gabriel!’

The Captain, famous Netherway
(That was his noble name);
The Master—he was called John Mines—
A mariner of fame:
The Gunner, Thomas Watson,
A man of perfect skill:
With many another valiant heart
In the Angel Gabriel.

They waving up and down the seas
Upon the ocean main,
‘It is not long ago,’ quoth they,
‘That England fought with Spain:
O would the Spaniard we might meet
Our stomachs to fulfil!
We would play him fair a noble bout
With our Angel Gabriel!’

They had no sooner spoken
But straight appeared in sight
Three lusty Spanish vessels
Of warlike trim and might;
With bloody resolution
They thought our men to spill,
And vowed that they would make a prize
Of our Angel Gabriel.

Our gallant ship had in her
Full forty fighting men;
With twenty piece of ordnance
We played about them then,
With powder, shot, and bullets
Right well we worked our will,
And hot and bloody grew the fight
With our Angel Gabriel.

Our Captain to our Master said,
‘Take courage, Master bold!’
Our Master to the seamen said,
‘Stand fast, my hearts of gold!’
Our Gunner unto all the rest,
‘Brave hearts, be valiant still!
Fight on, fight on in the defence
Of our Angel Gabriel!’

We gave them such a broadside
It smote their mast asunder,
And tore the bowsprit off their ship,
Which made the Spaniards wonder,
And causèd them in fear to cry,
With voices loud and shrill,
‘Help, help, or sunken we shall be
By the Angel Gabriel!’

So desperately they boarded us
For all our valiant shot,
Threescore of their best fighting men
Upon our decks were got;
And lo! at their first entrances
Full thirty did we kill,
And thus with speed we cleared the deck
Of our Angel Gabriel.

With that their three ships boarded us
Again with might and main,
But still our noble Englishmen
Cried out ‘A fig for Spain!’
Though seven times they boarded us
At last we showed our skill,
And made them feel what men we were
On the Angel Gabriel.

Seven hours this fight continued:
So many men lay dead,
With Spanish blood for fathoms round
The sea was coloured red.
Five hundred of their fighting men
We there outright did kill,
And many more were hurt and maimed
By our Angel Gabriel.

Then seeing of these bloody spoils,
The rest made haste away:
For why, they said, it was no boot
The longer there to stay.
Then they fled into Calès,
Where lie they must and will
For fear lest they should meet again
With our Angel Gabriel.

We had within our English ship
But only three men slain,
And five men hurt, the which I hope
Will soon be well again.
At Bristol we were landed,
And let us praise God still,
That thus hath blest our lusty hearts
And our Angel Gabriel.

Anonymous.

MILTON

XI
TO THE LORD GENERAL

Cromwell, our chief of men, who through a cloud,
Not of war only, but detractions rude,
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude,
To peace and truth thy glorious way hast ploughed,
And on the neck of crownèd Fortune proud
Hast reared God’s trophies, and His work pursued,
While Darwen stream, with blood of Scots imbrued,
And Dunbar field, resounds thy praises loud,
And Worcester’s laureate wreath: yet much remains
To conquer still; peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war: new foes arise,
Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains.
Help us to save free conscience from the paw
Of hireling wolves whose gospel is their maw.

John Milton.

XII
DELIVERANCE

O how comely it is, and how reviving
To the spirits of just men long oppress’d!
When God into the hands of their deliverer
Puts invincible might
To quell the mighty of the earth, the oppressor,
The brute and boisterous force of violent men,
Hardy and industrious to support
Tyrannic power, but raging to pursue
The righteous and all such as honour truth;
He all their ammunition
And feats of war defeats,
With plain heroic magnitude of mind
And celestial vigour arm’d;
Their armouries and magazines contemns,
Renders them useless; while
With winged expedition,
Swift as the lightning glance, he executes
His errand on the wicked, who, surprised,
Lose their defence, distracted and amazed.

John Milton.

MARVELL

XIII
HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL’S RETURN FROM IRELAND

The forward youth that would appear,
Must now forsake his Muses dear,
Nor in the shadows sing
His numbers languishing.

’Tis time to leave the books in dust,
And oil the unusèd armour’s rust,
Removing from the wall
The corselet of the hall.

So restless Cromwell could not cease
In the inglorious arts of peace,
But through adventurous war
Urgèd his active star:

And, like the three-fork’d lightning, first
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst,
Did thorough his own side
His fiery way divide:

For ’tis all one to courage high,
The emulous, or enemy;
And with such to inclose
Is more than to oppose;

Then burning through the air he went
And palaces and temples rent;
And Cæsar’s head at last
Did through his laurels blast.

’Tis madness to resist or blame
The face of angry Heaven’s flame;
And if we would speak true,
Much to the man is due

Who, from his private gardens, where
He lived reservèd and austere
(As if his highest plot
To plant the bergamot),

Could by industrious valour climb
To ruin the great work of Time,
And cast the kingdoms old
Into another mould;

Though Justice against Fate complain,
And plead the ancient rights in vain—
(But those do hold or break
As men are strong or weak),

Nature, that hateth emptiness,
Allows of penetration less,
And therefore must make room
Where greater spirits come.

What field of all the civil war
Where his were not the deepest scar?
And Hampton shows what part
He had of wiser art,

Where, twining subtile fears with hope,
He wove a net of such a scope
That Charles himself might chase
To Carisbrook’s narrow case,

That thence the royal actor borne
The tragic scaffold might adorn:
While round the armèd bands
Did clap their bloody hands.

He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene,
But with his keener eye
The axe’s edge did try;

Nor call’d the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right;
But bow’d his comely head
Down, as upon a bed.

This was that memorable hour
Which first assured the forcèd power:
So, when they did design
The Capitol’s first line,

A bleeding head, where they begun,
Did fright the architects to run;
And yet in that the State
Foresaw its happy fate!

And now the Irish are ashamed
To see themselves in one year tamed:
So much one man can do
That doth both act and know.

They can affirm his praises best,
And have, though overcome, confest
How good he is, how just,
And fit for highest trust;

Nor yet grown stiffer with command,
But still in the Republic’s hand
(How fit he is to sway,
That can so well obey!),

He to the Commons’ feet presents
A Kingdom for his first year’s rents,
And (what he may) forbears
His fame, to make it theirs:

And has his sword and spoils ungirt
To lay them at the Public’s skirt
So when the falcon high
Falls heavy from the sky,

She, having killed, no more doth search
But on the next green bough to perch,
Where, when he first does lure,
The falconer has her sure.

What may not then our Isle presume
While victory his crest does plume?
What may not others fear
If thus he crowns each year?

As Cæsar he, ere long, to Gaul,
To Italy an Hannibal,
And to all states not free
Shall climacteric be.

The Pict no shelter now shall find
Within his parti-coloured mind,
But from this valour sad
Shrink underneath the plaid.

Happy, if in the tufted brake
The English hunter him mistake,
Nor lay his hounds in near
The Caledonian deer.

But thou, the war’s and fortune’s son,
March indefatigably on,
And for the last effect
Still keep the sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
The same arts that did gain
A power, must it maintain.

Andrew Marvell.

XIV
SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA

Where the remote Bermudas ride
In the Ocean’s bosom unespied,
From a small boat that rowed along
The listening winds received this song.
‘What should we do but sing His praise
That led us through the watery maze,
Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks
That lift the deep upon their backs,
Unto an isle so long unknown,
And yet far kinder than our own?
He lands us on a grassy stage,
Safe from the storms and prelates’ rage:
He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels everything,
And sends the fowls to us in care
On daily visits through the air.
He hangs in shades the orange bright
Like golden lamps in a green night,
And does in the pomegranates close
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows:
He makes the figs our mouths to meet,
And throws the melons at our feet;
But apples plants of such a price,
No tree could ever bear them twice.
With cedars chosen by His hand
From Lebanon He stores the land,
And makes the hollow seas that roar
Proclaim the ambergrease on shore.
He cast (of which we rather boast)
The Gospel’s pearl upon our coast,
And in these rocks for us did frame
A temple where to sound His name.
O let our voice His praise exalt
Till it arrive at Heaven’s vault,
Which thence (perhaps) rebounding may
Echo beyond the Mexique Bay!’
Thus sang they in the English boat
A holy and a cheerful note:
And all the way, to guide their chime,
With falling oars they kept the time.

Andrew Marvell.

PARKER

XV
THE KING’S EXILE

Let rogues and cheats prognosticate
Concerning kings’ or kingdoms’ fate,
I think myself to be as wise
As he that gazeth on the skies,
Whose sight goes beyond
The depth of a pond
Or rivers in the greatest rain;
For I can tell
All will be well,
When the King enjoys his own again!

Though for a time we see Whitehall
With cobwebs hanging on the wall,
Instead of gold and silver brave,
Which formerly ’twas wont to have,
With rich perfume
In every room,
Delightful to that princely train,—
Yet the old again shall be
When the happy time you see
That the King enjoys his own again.

Full forty years this royal crown
Hath been his father’s and his own;
And is there any one but he
That in the same should sharer be?
For who better may
The sceptre sway
Than he that hath such right to reign?
Then let’s hope for a peace,
For the wars will not cease
Till the King enjoys his own again.

Martin Parker.

ANONYMOUS

XVI
HERE’S A HEALTH

Here’s a health unto His Majesty,
With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la!
Confusion to his enemies,
With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la!
And he that will not drink his health,
I wish him neither wit nor wealth,
Nor yet a rope to hang himself,
With a fa, la, la, la, la, la, la!

Anonymous.

DRYDEN

XVII
A SONG OF KING ARTHUR

Come, if you dare, our trumpets sound;
Come, if you dare, the foes rebound:
We come, we come, we come, we come,
Says the double, double, double beat of the thundering drum.

Now they charge on amain,
Now they rally again:
The gods from above the mad labour behold,
And pity mankind, that will perish for gold.

The fainting Saxons quit their ground,
Their trumpets languish in the sound:
They fly, they fly, they fly, they fly;
Victoria, Victoria, the bold Britons cry.

Now the victory’s won,
To the plunder we run:
We return to our lasses like fortunate traders,
Triumphant with spoils of the vanquish’d invaders.

John Dryden.

XVIII
LONDON IN 1666

Methinks already from this chymic flame
I see a city of more precious mould,
Rich as the town which gives the Indies name,
With silver paved, and all divine with gold.

Already, labouring with a mighty fate,
She shakes the rubbish from her mounting brow,
And seems to have renewed her charter’s date
Which Heaven will to the death of time allow.

More great than human now and more august,
New deified she from her fires does rise:
Her widening streets on new foundations trust,
And, opening, into larger parts she flies.

Before, she like some shepherdess did show
Who sate to bathe her by a river’s side,
Not answering to her fame, but rude and low,
Nor taught the beauteous arts of modern pride.

Now like a maiden queen she will behold
From her high turrets hourly suitors come;
The East with incense and the West with gold
Will stand like suppliants to receive her dome.

The silver Thames, her own domestic flood,
Shall bear her vessels like a sweeping train,
And often wind, as of his mistress proud,
With longing eyes to meet her face again.

The wealthy Tagus and the wealthier Rhine
The glory of their towns no more shall boast,
The Seine, that would with Belgian rivers join,
Shall find her lustre stained and traffic lost.

The venturous merchant, who designed more far,
And touches on our hospitable shore,
Charmed with the splendour of this northern star
Shall here unlade him and depart no more.

Our powerful navy shall no longer meet
The wealth of France or Holland to invade;
The beauty of this town without a fleet
From all the world shall vindicate her trade.

And while this famed emporium we prepare,
The British ocean shall such triumphs boast,
That those who now disdain our trade to share
Shall rob like pirates on our wealthy coast.

Already we have conquered half the war,
And the less dangerous part is left behind;
Our trouble now is but to make them dare
And not so great to vanquish as to find.

Thus to the eastern wealth through storms we go,
And now, the Cape once doubled, fear no more!
A constant trade-wind will securely blow
And gently lay us on the spicy shore.

John Dryden.

THOMSON

XIX
RULE BRITANNIA

When Britain first at Heaven’s command
Arose from out the azure main,
This was the charter of her land,
And guardian angels sang the strain:
Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves.

The nations not so blest as thee
Must in their turn to tyrants fall,
Whilst thou shalt flourish great and free—
The dread and envy of them all!

Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful from each foreign stroke;
As the last blast which tears the skies
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Thee haughty tyrants ne’er shall tame;
All their attempts to bend thee down
Will but arouse thy generous flame,
And work their woe and thy renown.

To thee belongs the rural reign;
Thy cities shall with commerce shine;
All thine shall be the subject main,
And every shore it circles thine!

The Muses, still with Freedom found,
Shall to thy happy coast repair;
Blest Isle, with matchless beauty crown’d,
And manly hearts to guard the fair:—
Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves!
Britons never shall be slaves!

James Thomson.

DYER

XX
DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN

Here’s a health to the King and a lasting peace,
To faction an end, to wealth increase!
Come, let’s drink it while we have breath,
For there’s no drinking after death;—
And he that will this health deny,
Down among the dead men—
Down among the dead men—
Down, down, down, down,
Down among the dead men let him lie!

John Dyer.

ANONYMOUS

XXI
GOD SAVE THE KING

God save our lord, the King,
Long live our noble King,—
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,—
God save the King!

O Lord, our God, arise,
Scatter his enemies,
And make them fall!
Confound their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks!
On Thee our hopes we fix,—
God save us all!

Thy choicest gifts in store
On him be pleased to pour,—
Long may he reign!
May he defend our laws,
And ever give us cause
To sing with heart and voice
God save the King!

Anonymous.

GARRICK

XXII
HEARTS OF OAK

Come, cheer up, my lads, ’tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year,
To honour we call you, not press you like slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men,
We always are ready,
Steady, boys, steady,
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.

We ne’er see our foes but we wish them to stay,
They never see us but they wish us away;
If they run, why, we follow, and run them ashore,
For if they won’t fight us, we cannot do more.
Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men,
We always are ready,
Steady, boys, steady,
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.

Still Britain shall triumph, her ships plough the sea,
Her standard be justice, her watchword ‘Be free’;
Then, cheer up, my lads, with one heart let us sing
Our soldiers, our sailors, our statesmen, our king.
Hearts of oak are our ships, hearts of oak are our men,
We always are ready,
Steady, boys, steady,
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again.

David Garrick.

COLLINS

XXIII
THE SLEEP OF THE BRAVE

How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallow’d mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honour comes, a pilgrim grey,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall a while repair
To dwell a weeping hermit there.

William Collins.

COWPER

XXIV
BOADICEA

When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought with an indignant mien
Counsel of her country’s gods,

Sage beneath the spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief,
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief:

‘Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
’Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.

‘Rome shall perish,—write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.

‘Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground,—
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!

‘Other Romans shall arise
Heedless of a soldier’s name;
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize,
Harmony the path to fame.

‘Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.

‘Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway;
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.’

Such the bard’s prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.

She with all a monarch’s pride
Felt them in her bosom glow,
Rushed to battle, fought, and died,
Dying, hurled them at the foe:

‘Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heaven awards the vengeance due;
Empire is on us bestowed,
Shame and ruin wait for you!’

William Cowper.

XXV
THE ROYAL GEORGE

Toll for the Brave!
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore!

Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel
And laid her on her side.

A land-breeze shook the shrouds
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George
With all her crew complete.

Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought,
His work of glory done.

It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock,
She sprang no fatal leak,
She ran upon no rock.

His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.

Weigh the vessel up,
Once dreaded by our foes!
And mingle with our cup
The tear that England owes.

Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again
Full charged with England’s thunder,
And plough the distant main:

But Kempenfelt is gone,
His victories are o’er;
And he and his eight hundred
Shall plough the wave no more.

William Cowper.

DIBDIN

XXVI
TOM BOWLING

Here, a sheer hulk, lies poor Tom Bowling,
The darling of our crew;
No more he’ll hear the tempest howling,
For death has broached him to.
His form was of the manliest beauty,
His heart was kind and soft,
Faithful below he did his duty,
And now he’s gone aloft.

Tom never from his word departed,
His virtues were so rare,
His friends were many, and true-hearted,
His Poll was kind and fair;
And then he’d sing so blithe and jolly,
Ah, many’s the time and oft!
But mirth is turned to melancholy,
For Tom is gone aloft.

Yet shall poor Tom find pleasant weather
When He, who all commands,
Shall give, to call life’s crew together,
The word to pipe all hands.
Thus Death, who kings and tars despatches,
In vain Tom’s life has doffed,
For though his body’s under hatches,
His soul is gone aloft.

Charles Dibdin.

XXVII
THE TRUE ENGLISH SAILOR

Jack dances and sings, and is always content,
In his vows to his lass he’ll ne’er fail her;
His anchor’s a-trip when his money’s all spent—
And this is the life of a sailor.

Alert in his duty, he readily flies
Where winds the tir’d vessel are flinging;
Though sunk to the sea-gods, or toss’d to the skies,
Still Jack is found working and singing.

‘Long-side of an enemy, boldly and brave,
He’ll with broadside on broadside regale her;
Yet he’ll sigh from his soul o’er that enemy’s grave:
So noble’s the mind of a sailor.

Let cannons road loud, burst their sides let the bombs,
Let the winds a dead hurricane rattle;
The rough and the pleasant he takes as it comes,
And laughs at the storm and the battle.

In a Fostering Power while Jack puts his trust,
As Fortune comes, smiling he’ll hail her;
Resign’d still, and manly, since what must be must,
And this is the mind of a sailor.

Though careless and headlong, if danger should press,
And rank’d ’mongst the free list of rovers,
Yet he’ll melt into tears at a tale of distress,
And prove the most constant of lovers.

To rancour unknown, to no passion a slave,
Nor unmanly, nor mean, nor a railer,
He’s gentle as mercy, as fortitude brave,
And this is a true English sailor.

Charles Dibdin.

XXVIII
TOM TOUGH

My name, d’ye see, ’s Tom Tough, I’ve seed a little sarvice,
Where mighty billows roll and loud tempests blow;
I’ve sailed with valiant Howe, I’ve sailed with noble Jarvis,
And in gallant Duncan’s fleet I’ve sung out ‘Yo heave ho!’
Yet more shall ye be knowing,—
I was coxon to Boscawen,
And even with brave Hawke have I nobly faced the foe.
Then put round the grog,—
So we’ve that and our prog,
We’ll laugh in Care’s face, and sing ‘Yo heave ho!’

When from my love to part I first weigh’d anchor,
And she was sniv’ling seed on the beach below,
I’d like to cotch’d my eyes sniv’ling too, d’ye see, to thank her,
But I brought my sorrows up with a ‘Yo heave ho!’
For sailors, though they have their jokes,
And love and feel like other folks,
Their duty to neglect must not come for to go;
So I seized the capstern bar,
Like a true honest tar,
And, in spite of tears and sighs, sang out ‘Yo heave ho!’

But the worst on’t was that time when the little ones were sickly,
And if they’d live or die the doctor did not know;
The word was gov’d to weigh so sudden and so quickly,
I thought my heart would break as I sung ‘Yo heave ho!’
For Poll’s so like her mother,
And as for Jack, her brother,
The boy, when he grows up will nobly fight the foe;
But in Providence I trust,
For you see what must be must,
So my sighs I gave the winds and sung out ‘Yo heave ho!’

And now at last laid up in a decentish condition,
For I’ve only lost an eye, and got a timber toe;
But old ships must expect in time to be out of commission,
Nor again the anchor weigh with ‘Yo heave ho!’
So I smoke my pipe and sing old songs,—
For my boy shall well revenge my wrongs,
And my girl shall breed young sailors, nobly for to face the foe;—
Then to Country and King,
Fate no danger can bring,
While the tars of Old England sing out ‘Yo heave ho!’

Charles Dibdin.

ANONYMOUS

XXIX
THE BRITISH GRENADIERS

Some talk of Alexander, and some of Hercules,
Of Hector and Lysander, and such great names as these,
But of all the world’s great heroes, there’s none that can compare,
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, to the British Grenadier!

Those heroes of antiquity ne’er saw a cannon ball,
Or knew the force of powder to slay their foes withal;
But our brave boys do know it, and banish all their fears,
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row, for the British Grenadiers!

Whene’er we are commanded to storm the palisades,
Our leaders march with fuses, and we with hand grenades,
We throw them from the glacis, about the enemies’ ears,
Sing tow, row, row, row, row, row, the British Grenadiers!

And when the siege is over, we to the town repair,
The townsmen cry, ‘Hurrah, boys, here comes a Grenadier!
‘Here come the Grenadiers, my boys, who know no doubts or fears!’
Then sing, tow, row, row, row, row, row, the British Grenadiers!

Then let us fill a bumper, and drink a health to those
Who carry caps and pouches, and wear the loupèd clothes,
May they and their commanders live happy all their years,
With a tow, row, row, row, row, row, for the British Grenadiers!

Anonymous.

ANONYMOUS

XXX
THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME

I’m lonesome since I cross’d the hill,
And o’er the moor and valley;
Such heavy thoughts my heart do fill,
Since parting with my Sally.
I seek no more the fine or gay,
For each does but remind me
How swift the hours did pass away,
With the girl I’ve left behind me.

Oh, ne’er shall I forget the night,
The stars were bright above me,
And gently lent their silv’ry light
When first she vowed to love me.
But now I’m bound to Brighton camp,
Kind Heaven, then, pray guide me,
And send me safely back again
To the girl I’ve left behind me.

My mind her form shall still retain,
In sleeping, or in waking,
Until I see my love again,
For whom my heart is breaking.
If ever I return that way,
And she should not decline me,
I evermore will live and stay
With the girl I’ve left behind me.

Anonymous.

HOARE

XXXI
THE ARETHUSA

Come, all ye jolly sailors bold,
Whose hearts are cast in honour’s mould,
While English glory I unfold,
Huzza for the Arethusa!
She is a frigate tight and brave,
As ever stemmed the dashing wave;
Her men are staunch
To their fav’rite launch,
And when the foe shall meet our fire,
Sooner than strike, we’ll all expire
On board of the Arethusa.

’Twas with the spring fleet she went out
The English Channel to cruise about,
When four French sail, in show so stout
Bore down on the Arethusa.
The famed Belle Poule straight ahead did lie,
The Arethusa seemed to fly,
Not a sheet, or a tack,
Or a brace, did she slack;
Though the Frenchmen laughed and thought it stuff,
But they knew not the handful of men, how tough,
On board of the Arethusa.

On deck five hundred men did dance,
The stoutest they could find in France;
We with two hundred did advance
On board of the Arethusa.
Our captain hailed the Frenchman, ‘Ho!’
The Frenchman then cried out ‘Hallo!’
‘Bear down, d’ye see,
To our admiral’s lee!’
‘No, no,’ says the Frenchman, ‘that can’t be!’
‘Then I must lug you along with me,’
Says the saucy Arethusa.

The fight was off the Frenchman’s land,
We forced them back upon their strand,
For we fought till not a stick could stand
Of the gallant Arethusa.
And now we’ve driven the foe ashore
Never to fight with the Britons more,
Let each fill his glass
To his fav’rite lass;
A health to our captain and officers true,
And all that belong to the jovial crew
On board of the Arethusa.

Prince Hoare.

BLAKE

XXXII
JERUSALEM IN ENGLAND

England, awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death,
And close her from thy ancient walls?

Thy hills and valleys felt her feet
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways;
Then was a time of joy and love.

And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult; and London’s towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England’s green and pleasant bowers.

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountain green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant land.

William Blake.

WORDSWORTH

XXXIII
ON LANDING IN ENGLAND

Here, on our native soil, we breathe once more.
The cock that crows, the smoke that curls, that sound
Of bells; those boys who in yon meadow-ground
In white-sleeved shirts are playing; and the roar
Of the waves breaking on the chalky shore;—
All, all are English. Oft have I looked round
With joy in Kent’s green vales; but never found
Myself so satisfied in heart before.
Europe is yet in bonds; but let that pass,
Thought for another moment. Thou art free,
My Country! and ’tis joy enough and pride
For one hour’s perfect bliss, to tread the grass
Of England once again, and hear and see,
With such a dear Companion at my side.

William Wordsworth.

XXXIV
DESTINY

It is not to be thought of that the Flood
Of British freedom, which, to the open sea
Of the world’s praise, from dark antiquity
Hath flowed, ‘with pomp of waters, unwithstood!’
Roused though it be full often to a mood
Which spurns the check of salutary bands,
That this most famous Stream in bogs and sands
Should perish; and to evil and to good
Be lost for ever—In our halls is hung
Armoury of the invincible Knights of old:
We must be free or die, who speak the tongue
That Shakespeare spake; the faith and morals hold
Which Milton held. In everything we are sprung
Of Earth’s first blood, have titles manifold.

William Wordsworth.

XXXV
THE MOTHERLAND

When I have borne in memory what has tamed
Great Nations, how ennobling thoughts depart
When men change swords for ledgers, and desert
The student’s bower for gold, some fears unnamed
I had, my Country!—am I to be blamed?
Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art,
Verily, in the bottom of my heart,
Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed.
For dearly must we prize thee; we who find
In thee a bulwark for the cause of men:
And I, by my affection was beguiled:
What wonder if a Poet now and then,
Among the many movements of his mind,
Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

William Wordsworth.

XXXVI
TO THE MEN OF KENT
(October, 1803)

Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent,
Ye children of a soil that doth advance
Her haughty bow against the coast of France,
Now is the time to prove your hardiment!
To France be words of invitation sent!
They from their fields can see the countenance
Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance
And hear you shouting forth your brave intent.
Left single, in bold parley, ye, of yore,
Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath;
Confirmed the charters that were yours before;—
No parleying now! In Britain is one breath;
We all are with you now from shore to shore;—
Ye men of Kent, ’tis victory or death!

William Wordsworth.

XXXVII
THE HAPPY WARRIOR

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright:
—Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
—He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans
To home-felt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe’er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—
’Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation’s eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not—
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape of danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name—
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven’s applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is He
That every Man in arms should wish to be.

William Wordsworth.

XXXVIII
AFTER WATERLOO

Who to the murmurs of an earthly string
Of Britain’s acts would sing,
He with enraptured voice will tell
Of One whose spirit no reverse could quell:
Of One that, ’mid the failing, never failed—
Who paints how Britain struggled and prevailed
Shall represent her labouring with an eye
Of circumspect humanity;
Shall show her clothed with strength and skill,
All martial duties to fulfill;
Firm as a rock in stationary fight;
In motion rapid as the lightning’s gleam;
Fierce as a flood-gate bursting in the night
To rouse the wicked from their giddy dream—
Woe, woe to all that face her in the field!
Appalled she may not be, and cannot yield.

William Wordsworth.

XXXIX
MERRY ENGLAND

They called Thee Merry England in old time,
A happy people won for thee that name
With envy heard in many a distant clime,
And, spite of change, for me thou keep’st the same
Endearing title, a responsive chime
To the heart’s fond belief: though some there are
Whose sterner judgments deem that word a snare
For inattentive Fancy, like the lime
Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask,
This face of rural beauty be a mask
For discontent, and poverty, and crime;
These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will?
Forbid it, Heaven!—and Merry England still
Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme!

William Wordsworth.

XL
HOPE

Despond who will—I heard a voice exclaim,
‘Though fierce the assault, and shattered the defence,
It cannot be that Britain’s social frame,
The glorious work of time and providence,
Before a flying season’s rash pretence,
Should fall; that She, whose virtue put to shame,
When Europe prostrate lay, the Conqueror’s aim,
Should perish, self-subverted. Black and dense
The cloud is; but brings that a day of doom
To Liberty? Her sun is up the while,
That orb whose beams round Saxon Alfred shone:
Then laugh, ye innocent Vales! ye Streams, sweep on,
Nor let one billow of our heaven-blest Isle
Toss in the fanning wind a humbler plume.’

William Wordsworth.

SCOTT

XLI
IN MEMORIAM
(Nelson: Pitt: Fox)

To mute and to material things
New life revolving summer brings;
The genial call dead Nature hears,
And in her glory reappears.
But O my Country’s wintry state
What second spring shall renovate?
What powerful call shall bid arise
The buried warlike and the wise;
The mind that thought for Britain’s weal,
The hand that grasped the victor steel?
The vernal sun new life bestows
Even on the meanest flower that blows;
But vainly, vainly may he shine,
Where glory weeps o’er Nelson’s shrine;
And vainly pierce the solemn gloom,
That shrouds, O Pitt, thy hallowed tomb!

Deep graved in every British heart,
O never let those names depart!
Say to your sons,—Lo, here his grave,
Who victor died on Gadite wave;
To him, as to the burning levin,
Short, bright, resistless course was given.
Where’er his country’s foes were found
Was heard the fated thunder’s sound,
Till burst the bolt on yonder shore,
Rolled, blazed, destroyed,—and was no more.

Nor mourn ye less his perished worth,
Who bade the conqueror go forth,
And launched that thunderbolt of war
On Egypt, Hafnia, Trafalgar;
Who, born to guide such high emprise,
For Britain’s weal was early wise;
Alas! to whom the Almighty gave,
For Britain’s sins, an early grave!
His worth, who in his mightiest hour
A bauble held the pride of power,
Spurned at the sordid lust of pelf,
And served his Albion for herself;
Who, from the frantic crowd amain
Strained at subjection’s bursting rein,
O’er their wild mood full conquest gained,
The pride he would not crush restrained,
Showed their fierce zeal a worthier cause,
And brought the freeman’s arm to aid the freeman’s laws.

Hadst thou but lived, though stripped of power,
A watchman on the lonely tower,
Thy thrilling trump had roused the land,
When fraud or danger were at hand;
By thee, as by the beacon-light,
Our pilots had kept course aright;
As some proud column, though alone,
Thy strength had propped the tottering throne:
Now is the stately column broke,
The beacon-light is quenched in smoke,
The trumpet’s silver sound is still,
The warder silent on the hill!

O think, how to his latest day,
When death, just hovering, claimed his prey,
With Palinure’s unaltered mood
Firm at his dangerous post he stood;
Each call for needful rest repelled,
With dying hand the rudder held,
Till in his fall with fateful sway,
The steerage of the realm gave way!
Then, while on Britain’s thousand plains
One unpolluted church remains,
Whose peaceful bells ne’er sent around
The bloody tocsin’s maddening sound,
But still, upon the hallowed day,
Convoke the swains to praise and pray;
While faith and civil peace are dear,
Grace this cold marble with a tear,—
He, who preserved them, Pitt, lies here!

Nor yet suppress the generous sigh,
Because his rival slumbers nigh;
Nor be thy requiescat dumb,
Lest it be said o’er Fox’s tomb.
For talents mourn, untimely lost,
When best employed, and wanted most;
Mourn genius high, and lore profound,
And wit that loved to play, not wound;
And all the reasoning powers divine,
To penetrate, resolve, combine;
And feelings keen, and fancy’s glow,—
They sleep with him who sleeps below:
And, if thou mourn’st they could not save
From error him who owns this grave,
Be ever harsher thought suppressed,
And sacred be the long last rest.
Here, where the end of earthly things
Lays heroes, patriots, bards, and kings;
Where stiff the hand, and still the tongue,
Of those who fought, and spoke and sung;
Here, where the fretted aisles prolong
The distant notes of holy song,
As if some angel spoke agen,
‘All peace on earth, good-will to men’;
If ever from an English heart,
O, here let prejudice depart,
And, partial feeling cast aside,
Record, that Fox a Briton died!
When Europe crouched to France’s yoke,
And Austria bent, and Prussia broke,
And the firm Russian’s purpose brave
Was bartered by a timorous slave,
Even then dishonour’s peace he spurned,
The sullied olive-branch returned,
Stood for his country’s glory fast,
And nailed her colours to the mast!
Heaven, to reward his firmness, gave
A portion in this honoured grave,
And ne’er held marble in its trust
Of two such wondrous men the dust.
With more than mortal powers endowed,
How high they soared above the crowd!
Theirs was no common party race,
Jostling by dark intrigue for place;
Like fabled Gods, their mighty war
Shook realms and nations in its jar;
Beneath each banner proud to stand,
Looked up the noblest of the land,
Till through the British world were known
The names of Pitt and Fox alone.
Spells of such force no wizard grave
E’er framed in dark Thessalian cave,
Though his could drain the ocean dry,
And force the planets from the sky.
These spells are spent, and, spent with these
The wine of life is on the lees.
Genius, and taste, and talent gone,
For ever tombed beneath the stone,
Where—taming thought to human pride!—
The mighty chiefs sleep side by side.
Drop upon Fox’s grave the tear,
’Twill trickle to his rival’s bier;
O’er Pitt’s the mournful requiem sound,
And Fox’s shall the notes rebound.
The solemn echo seems to cry,—
‘Here let their discord with them die.
Speak not for those a separate doom
Whom fate made Brothers in the tomb;
But search the land of living men,
Where wilt thou find their like agen?’

Sir Walter Scott.

DIBDIN

XLII
THE SNUG LITTLE ISLAND

Daddy Neptune one day to Freedom did say,
‘If ever I live upon dry land,
The spot I should hit on would be little Britain!’
Says Freedom, ‘Why that’s my own island!’
O, it’s a snug little island!
A right little, tight little island,
Search the globe round, none can be found
So happy as this little island.

Julius Cæsar, the Roman, who yielded to no man,
Came by water,—he couldn’t come by land;
And Dane, Pict, and Saxon, their homes turn’d their backs on,
And all for the sake of our island.
O, what a snug little island!
They’d all have a touch at the island!
Some were shot dead, some of them fled,
And some staid to live on the island.

Then a very great war-man, called Billy the Norman,
Cried ‘D—n it, I never liked my land;
It would be much more handy to leave this Normandy,
And live on yon beautiful island.’
Says he, ‘’Tis a snug little island:
Sha’n’t us go visit the island?’
Hop, skip, and jump, there he was plump,
And he kick’d up a dust in the island.

But party-deceit help’d the Normans to beat;
Of traitors they managed to buy land,
By Dane, Saxon, or Pict, Britons ne’er had been lick’d,
Had they stuck to the King of their island.
Poor Harold, the King of the island!
He lost both his life and his island.
That’s very true; what more could he do?
Like a Briton he died for his island!

The Spanish Armada set out to invade-a,
Quite sure, if they ever came nigh land,
They couldn’t do less than tuck up Queen Bess,
And take their full swing in the island.
O, the poor Queen of the island!
The Dons came to plunder the island;
But, snug in the hive, the Queen was alive,
And buz was the word in the island.

Those proud puff’d-up cakes thought to make ducks and drakes
Of our wealth; but they hardly could spy land,
When our Drake had the luck to make their pride duck
And stoop to the lads of the island.
Huzza for the lads of the island!
The good wooden walls of the island;
Devil or Don, let ’em come on;
But how would they come off at the island?

Since Freedom and Neptune have hitherto kept tune,
In each saying, ‘This shall be my land’;
Should the ‘Army of England,’ or all they could bring, land,
We’d show ’em some play for the island.
We’ll fight for our right to the island;
We’ll give them enough of the island;
Invaders should just—bite at the dust,
But not a bit more of the island!

Thomas Dibdin.

XLIII
THE MERRY SOLDIER

‘Who’ll serve the King?’ cried the sergeant aloud:
Roll went the drum, and the fife played sweetly;
‘Here, master sergeant,’ said I, from the crowd,
‘Is a lad who will answer your purpose completely.’
My father was a corporal, and well he knew his trade,
Of women, wine, and gunpowder, he never was afraid:
He’d march, fight—left, right,
Front flank—centre rank,
Storm the trenches—court the wenches,
Loved the rattle of a battle,
Died with glory—lives in story!
And, like him, I found a soldier’s life, if taken smooth and rough,
A very merry, hey down derry, sort of life enough.

‘Hold up your head,’ said the sergeant at drill:
Roll went the drum, and the fife played loudly;
‘Turn out your toes, sir!’ Says I, ‘Sir, I will,’
For a nimble-wristed round rattan the sergeant flourished proudly.
My father died when corporal, but I ne’er turned my back,
Till, promoted to the halberd, I was sergeant in a crack.
In sword and sash cut a dash,
Spurr’d and booted, next recruited
Hob and Clod—awkward squad,
Then began my rattan,
When boys unwilling came to drilling;
Till, made the colonel’s orderly, then who but I so bluff,
Led a very merry, hey down derry, sort of life enough.

‘Homeward, my lads!’ cried the general.—‘Huzza!’
Roll went the drum, and the fife played cheer’ly,
To quick time we footed, and sung all the way
‘Hey for the pretty girls we love so dearly!’
My father lived with jolly boys in bustle, jars, and strife,
And, like him, being fond of noise, I mean to take a wife
Soon as miss blushes ‘y-i-s!’
Rings, gloves, dears, loves,
Bells ringing, comrades singing,
Honeymoon finished soon,
Scolding, sighing, children crying!
Yet still a wedded life may prove, if taken smooth and rough,
A very merry, hey down derry, sort of life enough.

Thomas Dibdin.

SOUTHEY

XLIV
THE STANDARD-BEARER OF THE BUFFS

Steep is the soldier’s path; nor are the heights
Of glory to be won without long toil
And arduous efforts of enduring hope;
Save when Death takes the aspirant by the hand,
And cutting short the work of years, at once
Lifts him to that conspicuous eminence.
Such fate was mine.—The standard of the Buffs
I bore at Albuera, on that day
When, covered by a shower, and fatally
For friends misdeem’d, the Polish lancers fell
Upon our rear. Surrounding me, they claim’d
My precious charge.—‘Not but with life!’ I cried,
And life was given for immortality.
The flag which to my heart I held, when wet
With that heart’s blood, was soon victoriously
Regain’d on that great day. In former times,
Marlborough beheld it borne at Ramilies;
For Brunswick and for liberty it waved
Triumphant at Culloden; and hath seen
The lilies on the Caribbean shores
Abased before it. Then too in the front
Of battle did it flap exultingly,
When Douro, with its wide stream interposed,
Saved not the French invaders from attack,
Discomfiture, and ignominious rout.
My name is Thomas: undisgraced have I
Transmitted it. He who in days to come
May bear the honour’d banner to the field,
Will think of Albuera, and of me.

Robert Southey.

CAMPBELL

XLV
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 spirits 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.

XLVI
THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC

Of Nelson and the North
Sing the glorious day’s renown,
When to battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark’s crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
By each gun the lighted brand
In a bold determined hand,
And the Prince of all the land
Led them on.

Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine;
While the sign of battle flew
On the lofty British line:
It was ten of April morn by the chime:
As they drifted on their path,
There was silence deep as death;
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.

But the might of England flushed
To anticipate the scene;
And her van the fleeter rushed
O’er the deadly space between.
‘Hearts of oak!’ our captains cried; when each gun
From its adamantine lips
Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.

Again! again! again!
And the havoc did not slack,
Till a feebler cheer the Dane,
To our cheering sent us back;—
Their shots along the deep slowly boom:—
Then ceased—and all is wail,
As they strike the shattered sail;
Or, in conflagration pale
Light the goom.

Now joy, Old England, raise
For the tidings of thy might,
By the festal cities’ blaze,
Whilst the wine-cup shines in light;
And yet amidst that joy and uproar,
Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep
By thy wild and stormy steep,
Elsinore!

Thomas Campbell.

XLVII
MEN OF ENGLAND

Men of England! who inherit
Rights that cost your sires their blood!
Men whose undegenerate spirit
Has been proved on field and flood:—

By the foes you’ve fought uncounted,
By the glorious deeds you’ve done,
Trophies captured—breaches mounted,
Navies conquered—kingdoms won!

Yet, remember, England gathers
Hence but fruitless wreaths of fame,
If the freedom of your fathers
Glow not in your hearts the same.

What are monuments of bravery,
Where no public virtues bloom?
What avails in lands of slavery,
Trophied temples, arch, and tomb?

Pageants!—Let the world revere us
For our people’s rights and laws,
And the breasts of civic heroes
Bared in Freedom’s holy cause.

Yours are Hampden’s, Russell’s glory,
Sidney’s matchless shade is yours,—
Martyrs in heroic story,
Worth a hundred Agincourts!

We’re the sons of sires that baffled
Crown’d and mitred tyranny;—
They defied the field and scaffold
For their birthrights—so will we!

Thomas Campbell.

CUNNINGHAM

XLVIII
THE BRITISH SAILOR’S SONG

Away with bayonet and with lance,
With corselet, casque, and sword;
Our island-king no war-horse needs,
For on the sea he’s lord.
His throne’s the war-ship’s lofty deck,
His sceptre is the mast;
His kingdom is the rolling wave,
His servant is the blast.
His anchor’s up, fair Freedom’s flag
Proud to the mast he nails;
Tyrants and conquerors bow your heads,
For there your terror sails.

I saw fierce Prussia’s chargers stand,
Her children’s sharp swords out;—
Proud Austria’s bright spurs streaming red
When rose the closing shout;
But soon the steeds rush’d masterless,
By tower, and town, and wood;
For lordly France her fiery youth
Poured o’er them like a flood.
Go, hew the gold spurs from your heels,
And let your steeds run free;
Then come to our unconquered decks,
And learn to reign at sea.

Behold yon black and batter’d hulk
That slumbers on the tide,
There is no sound from stem to stern,
For peace has pluck’d her pride;
The masts are down, the cannon mute
She shows nor sheet nor sail,
Nor starts forth with the seaward breeze,
Nor answers shout nor hail;
Her merry men, with all their mirth,
Have sought some other shore;
And she with all her glory on,
Shall rule the sea no more.

So landsmen speak. Lo! her top-masts
Are quivering in the sky;
Her sails are spread, her anchor’s raised,
There sweeps she gallant by.
A thousand warriors fill her decks;
Within her painted side
The thunder sleeps—man’s might has nought
Can match or mar her pride.
In victor glory goes she forth;
Her stainless flag flies free;
Kings of the earth, come and behold
How Britain reigns on sea!

When on your necks the armèd foot
Of fierce Napoleon trod,
And all was his, save the wide sea,
Where we triumphant rode,
He launched his terror and his strength,
Our sea-born pride to tame;
They came—they got the Nelson-touch,
And vanish’d as they came.
Go, hang your bridles in your halls,
And set your war-steeds free;
The world has one unconquer’d king,
And he reigns on the sea!

Allan Cunningham.

BYRON

XLIX
ON LEAVING ENGLAND

Once more upon the waters! Yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe’er it lead!
Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean’s foam to sail
Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.

I’ve taught me other tongues—and in strange eyes
Have made me not a stranger; to the mind
Which is itself, no changes bring surprise;
Nor is it harsh to make, nor hard to find
A country with—aye, or without mankind;
Yet was I born where men are proud to be,—
Not without cause; and should I leave behind
The inviolate Island of the sage and free,
And seek me out a home by a remoter sea,

Perhaps I loved it well; and should I lay
My ashes in a soil which is not mine,
My Spirit shall resume it—if we may
Unbodied choose a sanctuary. I twine
My hopes of being remembered in my line
With my land’s language: if too fond and far
These aspirations in their scope incline,—
If my Fame should be, as my fortunes are,
Of hasty growth and blight, and dull Oblivion bar

My name from out the temple where the dead
Are honoured by the Nations—let it be—
And light the Laurels on a loftier head!
And be the Spartan’s epitaph on me—
‘Sparta hath many a worthier son than he.’
Meantime I seek no sympathies, nor need—
The thorns which I have reaped are of the tree
I planted,—they have torn me,—and I bleed:
I should have known what fruit would spring from such a seed.

Byron.

L
THE ISLES OF GREECE

The Isles of Greece, the Isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,—
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero’s harp, the lover’s lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute.
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires’ ‘Islands of the Blest.’

The mountains look on Marathon—
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream’d that Greece might still be free,
For standing on the Persians’ grave
I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sate on the rocky brow
Which looks o’er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;—all were his!
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sun set where were they?

And where are they? And where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now,
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?

’Tis something in the dearth of fame,
Though linked among a fettered race,
To feel at least a patriot’s shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush—for Greece a tear!

Must we but weep o’er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylæ!

What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;—the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent’s fall,
And answer, ‘Let one living head,
But one arise,—we come, we come!’
’Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain—in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio’s vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call—
How answers each bold Bacchanal!

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade—
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.

Place me on Sunium’s marbled steep,
Where nothing, save the waves and I
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing and die:
A land of slaves shall ne’er be mine—
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

Byron.

LI
THE EVE OF WATERLOO

There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her Beauty and her Chivalry—and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men;
A thousand hearts beat happily; and when
Music arose with its voluptuous swell,
Soft eyes looked love to eyes which spake again,
And all went merry as a marriage bell;
But hush! hark! a deep sound strikes like a rising knell!

Did ye not hear it?—No—’twas but the wind,
Or the car rattling o’er the stony street;
On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing Hours with flying feet—
But, hark!—that heavy sound breaks in once more,
As if the clouds its echo would repeat;
And nearer—clearer—deadlier than before!
Arm! Arm! it is—it is—the cannon’s opening roar!

Within a windowed niche of that high hall
Sate Brunswick’s fated Chieftain; he did hear
That sound the first amidst the festival,
And caught its tone with Death’s prophetic ear;
And when they smiled because he deemed it near,
His heart more truly knew that peal too well
Which stretched his father on a bloody bier,
And roused the vengeance blood alone could quell;
He rushed into the field, and, foremost fighting, fell.

Ah! then and there was hurrying to and fro—
And gathering tears, and tremblings of distress,
And cheeks all pale, which but an hour ago
Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness—
And there were sudden partings, such as press
The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs
Which ne’er might be repeated; who could guess
If ever more should meet those mutual eyes,
Since upon night so sweet such awful morn could rise!

And there was mounting in hot haste—the steed,
The mustering squadron, and the clattering car,
Went pouring forward with impetuous speed,
And swiftly forming in the ranks of war,—
And the deep thunder peal on peal afar;
And near, the beat of the alarming drum
Roused up the soldier ere the morning star;
While thronged the citizens with terror dumb,
Or whispering, with white lips—‘The foe! They come! they come!’

And wild and high the ‘Camerons’ Gathering’ rose!
The war-note of Lochiel, which Albyn’s hills
Have heard, and heard, too, have her Saxon foes:—
How in the noon of night that pibroch thrills,
Savage and shrill! But with the breath which fills
Their mountain-pipe, so fill the mountaineers
With the fierce native daring which instils
The stirring memory of a thousand years,
And Evan’s—Donald’s fame rings in each clansman’s ears!

And Ardennes waves above them her green leaves,
Dewy with Nature’s tear-drops, as they pass—
Grieving, if aught inanimate e’er grieves,
Over the unreturning brave,—alas!
Ere evening to be trodden like the grass
Which now beneath them, but above shall grow
In its next verdure, when this fiery mass
Of living valour rolling on the foe,
And burning with high hope, shall moulder cold and low.

Last noon beheld them full of lusty life;—
Last eve in Beauty’s circle proudly gay;
The midnight brought the signal-sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms,—the day
Battle’s magnificently-stern array!
The thunder-clouds close o’er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse,—friend—foe,—in one red burial blent!

Lord Byron.

WOLFE

LII
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE

Not a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O’er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
How the foe and the stranger would tread o’er his head,
And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they’ll talk of the spirit that’s gone,
And o’er his cold ashes upbraid him,
But little he’ll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour for retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory;
We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone—
But we left him alone with his glory.

Charles Wolfe.

HEMANS

LIII
THE BENDED BOW

There was heard the sound of a coming foe,
There was sent through Britain a bended bow;
And a voice was pour’d on the free winds far,
As the land rose up at the sign of war.

‘Heard you not the battle horn?—
Reaper! leave thy golden corn!
Leave it for the birds of heaven,
Swords must flash, and spears be riven!
Leave it for the winds to shed—
Arm! ere Britain’s turf grow red!’

And the reaper arm’d, like a freeman’s son;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.

‘Hunter! leave the mountain-chase!
Take the falchion from its place!
Let the wolf go free to-day,
Leave him for a nobler prey!
Let the deer ungall’d sweep by,—
Arm thee! Britain’s foes are nigh!’

And the hunter arm’d ere the chase was done;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.

‘Chieftain! quit the joyous feast!
Stay not till the song hath ceased:
Though the mead be foaming bright,
Though the fires give ruddy light,
Leave the hearth, and leave the hall—
Arm thee! Britain’s foes must fall.’

And the chieftain arm’d, and the horn was blown;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.

‘Prince! thy father’s deeds are told,
In the bower, and in the hold!
Where the goatherd’s lay is sung,
Where the minstrel’s harp is strung,
Foes are on thy native sea—
Give our bards a tale of thee!’

And the prince came arm’d, like a leader’s son;
And the bended bow and the voice passed on.

‘Mother! stay not thou thy boy!
He must learn the battle’s joy,
Sister bring the sword and spear,
Give thy brother words of cheer!
Maiden! bid thy lover part,
Britain calls the strong in heart!’

And the bended bow and the voice passed on;
And the bards made song for a battle won.

Felicia Hemans.

LIV
ENGLAND’S DEAD

Son of the Ocean Isle!
Where sleep your mighty dead?
Show me what high and stately pile
Is reared o’er Glory’s bed.

Go, stranger! track the deep—
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, not wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England’s dead.

On Egypt’s burning plains,
By the pyramid o’erswayed,
With fearful power the noonday reigns,
And the palm trees yield no shade;

But let the angry sun
From heaven look fiercely red,
Unfelt by those whose task is done!—
There slumber England’s dead.

The hurricane hath might
Along the Indian shore,
And far by Ganges’ banks at night
Is heard the tiger’s roar;—

But let the sound roll on!
It hath no tone of dread
For those that from their toils are gone,—
There slumber England’s dead.

Loud rush the torrent floods
The western wilds among,
And free in green Columbia’s woods
The hunter’s bow is strung;—

But let the floods rush on!
Let the arrow’s flight be sped!
Why should they reck whose task is done?—
There slumber England’s dead.

The mountain-storms rise high
In the snowy Pyrenees,
And toss the pine-boughs through the sky
Like rose-leaves on the breeze;—

But let the storm rage on!
Let the fresh wreaths be shed!
For the Roncesvalles’ field is won,—
There slumber England’s dead.

On the frozen deep’s repose
’Tis a dark and dreadful hour,
When round the ship the ice-fields close,
And the northern night-clouds lour;—

But let the ice drift on!
Let the cold-blue desert spread!
Their course with mast and flag is done,—
Even there sleep England’s dead.

The war-like of the isles,
The men of field and wave!
Are not the rocks their funeral piles,
The seas and shores their grave?

Go, stranger! track the deep—
Free, free the white sail spread!
Wave may not foam, nor wild wind sweep,
Where rest not England’s dead.

Felicia Hemans.

MACAULAY

LV
THE ARMADA

Attend, all ye who list to hear our noble England’s praise;
I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,
When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vain
The richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.
It was about the lovely close of a warm summer day,
There came a gallant merchant-ship full sail to Plymouth Bay;
Her crew hath seen Castile’s black fleet, beyond Aurigny’s isle,
At earliest twilight, on the waves lie heaving many a mile.
At sunrise she escaped their van, by God’s especial grace;
And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase.
Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall;
The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgecumbe’s lofty hall;
Many a light fishing-bark put out to pry along the coast,
And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post.
With his white hair unbonneted, the stout old sheriff comes;
Behind him march the halberdiers; before him sound the drums;
His yeomen round the market cross make clear an ample space;
For there behoves him to set up the standard of Her Grace.
And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the bells,
As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon swells.
Look how the Lion of the sea lifts up his ancient crown,
And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies down!
So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that famed Picard field,
Bohemia’s plume, and Genoa’s bow, and Cæsar’s eagle shield.
So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned to bay,
And crushed and torn beneath his claws the princely hunters lay.
Ho! strike the flagstaff deep, Sir Knight: ho! scatter flowers, fair maids:
Ho! gunners, fire a loud salute: ho! gallants, draw your blades:
Thou sun, shine on her joyously: ye breezes, waft her wide;
Our glorious Semper Eadem, the banner of our pride.

The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner’s massy fold;
The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty scroll of gold;
Night sank upon the dusky beach and on the purple sea,
Such night in England ne’er had been, nor e’er again shall be.
From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford Bay,
That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day;
For swift to east and swift to west the ghastly war-flame spread,
High on St. Michael’s Mount it shone: it shone on Beachy Head.
Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire,
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire.
The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar’s glittering waves:
The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip’s sunless caves!
O’er Longleat’s towers, o’er Cranbourne’s oaks, the fiery herald flew:
He roused the shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu.
Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol town,
And ere the day three hundred horse had met on Clifton down;
The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night;
And saw o’erhanging Richmond Hill the streak of blood-red light:
Then bugle’s note and cannon’s roar the death-like silence broke,
And with one start, and with one cry, the royal city woke.
At once on all her stately gates arose the answering fires;
At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling spires;
From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the voice of fear;
And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a louder cheer;
And from the furthest wards was heard the rush of hurrying feet,
And the broad streams of pikes and flags rushed down each roaring street;
And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din,
As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in.
And eastward straight from wild Blackheath the warlike errand went,
And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent.
Southward from Surrey’s pleasant hills flew those bright couriers forth;
High on bleak Hampstead’s swarthy moor they started for the north;
And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still:
All night from tower to tower they sprang; they sprang from hill to hill:
Till the proud Peak unfurled the flag o’er Darwin’s rocky dales,
Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales,
Till twelve fair Counties saw the blaze on Malvern’s lonely height,
Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin’s crest of light,
Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely’s stately fane,
And tower and hamlet rose in arms o’er all the boundless plain;
Till Belvoir’s lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,
And Lincoln sped the message on o’er the wide vale of Trent;
Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt’s embattled pile,
And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlisle.

Macaulay.

LVI
A JACOBITE’S EPITAPH

To my true king I offered free from stain
Courage and faith; vain faith, and courage vain.
For him, I threw lands, honours, wealth, away,
And one dear hope, that was more prized than they.
For him I languished in a foreign clime,
Grey-haired with sorrow in my manhood’s prime;
Heard on Lavernia Scargill’s whispering trees,
And pined by Arno for my lovelier Tees;
Beheld each night my home in fevered sleep,
Each morning started from the dream to weep;
Till God, who saw me tried too sorely, gave
The resting-place I asked—an early grave.
O thou, whom chance leads to this nameless stone,
From that proud country which was once mine own,
By those white cliffs I never more must see,
By that dear language which I speak like thee,
Forget all feuds, and shed one English tear
O’er English dust. A broken heart lies here.

Lord Macaulay.

TRENCH

LVII
THE TASK

Yes, let us own it in confession free,
That when we girt ourselves to quell the wrong,
We deemed it not so giant-like and strong,
But it with our slight effort thought to see
Pushed from its base; yea, almost deemed that we,
Champions of right, might be excused the price
Of pain, and loss, and large self-sacrifice,
Set ever on high things by Heav’n’s decree.
What if this work’s great hardness was concealed
From us, until so far upon our way
That no escape remained us, no retreat,—
Lest, being at an earlier hour revealed,
We might have shrunk too weakly from the heat,
And shunned the burden of this fiery day?

Richard Chenevix Trench.

LVIII
THE UNFORGOTTEN

Whom for thy race of heroes wilt thou own,
And, England, who shall be thy joy, thy pride?
As thou art just, oh then not those alone
Who nobly conquering lived, or conquering died.

Then also in thy roll of heroes write,
For well they earned what best thou canst bestow,
Who being girt and armèd for the fight,
Yielded their arms, but to no mortal foe.

Far off they pined on fever-stricken coast,
Or sank in sudden arms of painful death;
And faces which their eyes desired the most,
They saw not, as they drew their parting breath.

Sad doom, to know a mighty work in hand,
Which shall from all the ages honour win;
Upon the threshold of this work to stand,
Arrested there, while others enter in.

And this was theirs; they saw their fellows bound
To fields of fame which they might never share;
And all the while within their own hearts found
A strength that was not less, to do and dare:

But knew that never, never with their peers,
They should salute some grand day’s glorious close,
The shout of triumph ringing in their ears,
The light of battle shining on their brows.

Sad doom;—yet say not Heaven to them assigned
A lot from all of glory quite estranged:
Albeit the laurel which they hoped to bind
About their brows for cypress wreath was changed.

Heaven gave to them a glory stern, austere,
A glory of all earthly glory shorn;
With firm heart to accept fate’s gift severe,
Bravely to bear the thing that must be borne;

To see such visions fade and turn to nought,
And in this saddest issue to consent;
If only the great work were duly wrought,
That others should accomplish it, content.

Then as thou wouldst thyself continue great,
Keep a true eye for what is great indeed;
Nor know it only in its lofty state
And victor’s robes, but in its lowliest weed.

And now, and when this dreadful work is done,
England, be these too thy delight and pride;
Wear them as near thy heart as any one
Of all who conquering lived, or conquering died.

Richard Chenevix Trench.

BROWNING

LIX
THE FORCED RECRUIT
(Solferino, 1859)

In the ranks of the Austrian you found him,
He died with his face to you all;
Yet bury him here where around him
You honour your bravest that fall.

Venetian, fair-featured and slender,
He lies shot to death in his youth,
With a smile on his lips over-tender
For any mere soldier’s dead mouth.

No stranger, and yet not a traitor,
Though alien the cloth on his breast,
Underneath it how seldom a greater
Young heart has a shot sent to rest!

By your enemy tortured and goaded
To march with them, stand in their file,
His musket (see) never was loaded,
He facing your guns with that smile!

As orphans yearn on to their mothers,
He yearned to your patriot bands;—
Let me die for our Italy, brothers,
If not in your ranks, by your hands!

‘Aim straightly, fire steadily! spare me
A ball in the body which may
Deliver my heart here, and tear me
This badge of the Austrian away!’

So thought he, so died he this morning.
What then? Many others have died.
Ay, but easy for men to die scorning
The death-stroke, who fought side by side—

One tricolor floating above them;
Struck down ’mid triumphant acclaims
Of an Italy rescued to love them
And blazen the brass with their names.

But he,—without witness or honour,
Mixed, shamed in his country’s regard,
With the tyrants who march in upon her,
Died faithful and passive: ’twas hard.

’Twas sublime. In a cruel restriction
Cut off from the guerdon of sons,
With most filial obedience, conviction,
His soul kissed the lips of her guns.

That moves you? Nay, grudge not to show it,
While digging a grave for him here:
The others who died, says your poet,
Have glory,—let him have a tear.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

TENNYSON

LX
THE ANSWER

You ask me, why, tho’ ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.

It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;

A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent:

Where faction seldom gathers head,
But by degrees to fulness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.

Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute;

Tho’ Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great—
Tho’ every channel of the State
Should fill and choke with golden sand—

Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.

Tennyson.

LXI
FREEDOM

Of old sat Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet:
Above her shook the starry lights:
She heard the torrents meet.

There in her place she did rejoice,
Self-gather’d in her prophet mind,
But fragments of her mighty voice
Came rolling on the wind.

Then stept she down thro’ town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men reveal’d
The fullness of her face—

Grave mother of majestic works,
From her isle-altar gazing down,
Who, God-like, grasps the triple forks,
And, King-like, wears the crown:

Her open eyes desire the truth.
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;

That her fair form may stand and shine,
Make bright our days and light our dreams,
Turning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes!

Tennyson.

LXII
BATTLE SONG

Thy voice is heard thro’ rolling drums,
That beat to battle where he stands;
Thy face across his fancy comes,
And gives the battle to his hands:
A moment, while the trumpets blow,
He sees his brood about thy knee;
The next, like fire he meets the foe,
And strikes him dead for thine and thee.

Tennyson.

LXIII
VICTORIA’S REIGN

Her court was pure; her life serene;
God gave her peace; her land reposed;
A thousand claims to reverence closed
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen;

And statesmen at her council met
Who knew the seasons when to take
Occasion by the hand, and make
The bounds of freedom wider yet

By shaping some august decree,
Which kept her throne unshaken still,
Broad-based upon her people’s will,
And compass’d by the inviolate sea.

Tennyson.

LXIV
HANDS ALL ROUND

First pledge our Queen this solemn night,
Then drink to England, every guest;
That man’s the best Cosmopolite
Who loves his native country best.
May freedom’s oak for ever live
With stronger life from day to day;
That man’s the true Conservative
Who lops the mouldered branch away.
Hands all round!
God the traitor’s hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.

To all the loyal hearts who long
To keep our English Empire whole!
To all our noble sons, the strong
New England of the Southern Pole!
To England under Indian skies,
To those dark millions of her realm!
To Canada whom we love and prize,
Whatever statesman hold the helm.
Hands all round!
God the traitor’s hope confound!
To this great name of England drink, my friends,
And all her glorious Empire round and round.

To all our statesmen so they be
True leaders of the land’s desire!
To both our Houses, may they see
Beyond the borough and the shire!
We sail’d wherever ship could sail,
We founded many a mighty state;
Pray God our greatness may not fail
Thro’ craven fears of being great.
Hands all round!
God the traitor’s hope confound!
To this great cause of Freedom drink, my friends,
And the great name of England, round and round.

Tennyson.

LXV
BRITONS, HOLD YOUR OWN!

Britain fought her sons of yore—
Britain fail’d; and never more,
Careless of our growing kin,
Shall we sin our fathers’ sin,
Men that in a narrower day—
Unprophetic rulers they—
Drove from out the mother’s nest
That young eagle of the West
To forage for herself alone;
Britons, hold your own!

Sharers of our glorious past,
Brothers, must we part at last?
Shall we not thro’ good and ill
Cleave to one another still?
Britain’s myriad voices call,
‘Sons, be wedded each and all,
Into one imperial whole,
One with Britain, heart and soul!
One life, one flag, one fleet, one Throne!
Britons, hold your own!’

Tennyson.

LXVI
WELLINGTON AT ST. PAUL’S

Who is he that cometh, like an honour’d guest,
With banner and with music, with soldier and with priest,
With a nation weeping, and breaking on my rest?
Mighty Seaman, this is he
Was great by land as thou by sea.
Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man,
The greatest sailor since our world began.
Now to the roll of muffled drums,
To thee the greatest soldier comes;
For this is he
Was great by land as thou by sea;
His foes were thine; he kept us free;
O give him welcome, this is he
Worthy of our gorgeous rites,
And worthy to be laid by thee;
For this is England’s greatest son,
He that gained a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun.

Mighty Seaman, tender and true,
And pure as he from taint of craven guile,
O saviour of the silver-coasted isle,
O shaker of the Baltic and the Nile,
If aught of things that here befall
Touch a spirit among things divine,
If love of country move thee there at all,
Be glad, because his bones are laid by thine!
And thro’ the centuries let a people’s voice
In full acclaim,
A people’s voice,
The proof and echo of all human fame,
A people’s voice, when they rejoice
At civic revel and pomp and game,
Attest their great commander’s claim
With honour, honour, honour, honour to him,
Eternal honour to his name.

A people’s voice! we are a people yet.
Tho’ all men else their nobler dreams forget,
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers;
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
His Briton in blown seas and storming showers,
We have a voice, with which to pay the debt
Of boundless love and reverence and regret
To those great men who fought, and kept it ours.
And keep it ours, O God, from brute control;
O Statesmen, guard us, guard the eye, the soul
Of Europe, keep our noble England whole,
And save the one true seed of freedom sown,
Betwixt a people and their ancient throne,
That sober freedom out of which there springs
Our loyal passion for our temperate kings;
For, saving that, ye help to save mankind
Till public wrong be crumbled into dust,
And drill the raw world for the march of mind,
Till crowds at length be sane and crowns be just.

Not once or twice in our fair island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory:
He that ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Thro’ the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevail’d,
Shall find the toppling crags of Duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands
To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

Hush! the Dead March wails in the people’s ears:
The dark crowd moves, and there are sobs and tears:
The black earth yawns: the mortal disappears;
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust;
He is gone who seem’d so great.—
Gone; but nothing can bereave him
Of the force he made his own
Being here, and we believe him
Something far advanced in State,
And that he wears a truer crown
Than any wreath that man can weave him.

Speak no more of his renown,
Lay your earthly fancies down,
And in the vast cathedral leave him!
God accept him, Christ receive him!

Tennyson.

LXVII
THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!

Tennyson.

LXVIII
THE USE OF WAR

Why do they prate of the blessings of Peace? We have made them a curse,
Pickpockets, each hand lusting for all that is not its own;
And lust of gain, in the spirit of Cain, is it better or worse
Than the heart of the citizen hissing in war on his own hearthstone?

Peace sitting under her olive, and slurring the days gone by,
When the poor are hovell’d and hustled together, each sex, like swine,
When only the ledger lives, and when only not all men lie;
Peace in her vineyard—yes!—but a company forges the wine.

And the vitriol madness flushes up in the ruffian’s head,
And the filthy by-lane rings to the yell of the trampled wife,
And chalk and alum and plaster are sold to the poor for bread,
And the spirit of murder works in the very means of life,
When a Mammonite mother kills her babe for a burial fee,
And Timour-Mammon grins on a pile of children’s bones,
Is it peace or war? better, war! loud war by land and sea,
War with a thousand battles, and shaking a hundred thrones.

For I trust if an enemy’s fleet came yonder round by the hill
And the rushing battle-bolt sang from the three-decker out of the foam,
That the smooth-faced snub-nosed rogue would leap from his counter and till,
And strike, if he could, were it but with his cheating yard-wand, home!

Lord Tennyson.

DOYLE

LXIX
THE PRIVATE OF THE BUFFS

Last night, among his fellow roughs,
He jested, quaffed, and swore;
A drunken private of the Buffs,
Who never looked before.
To-day, beneath the foeman’s frown,
He stands in Elgin’s place,
Ambassador from Britain’s crown,
And type of all her race.

Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered, and alone,
A heart, with English instinct fraught,
He yet can call his own.
Ay, tear his body limb from limb,
Bring cord, or axe, or flame:
He only knows, that not through him
Shall England come to shame.

Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed,
Like dreams, to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed,
One sheet of living snow;
The smoke, above his father’s door,
In grey soft eddyings hung:
Must he then watch it rise no more,
Doomed by himself, so young?

Yes, honour calls!—with strength like steel
He put the vision by.
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel;
An English lad must die.
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,
To his red grave he went.

Vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed;
Vain, those all-shattering guns;
Unless proud England keep, untamed,
The strong heart of her sons.
So, let his name through Europe ring—
A man of mean estate,
Who died, as firm as Sparta’s king,
Because his soul was great.

Sir Francis Hastings Doyle.

BROWNING

LXX
HOME THOUGHTS, FROM ABROAD

O, to be in England,
Now that April’s there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf,
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!
And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows—
Hark! where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray’s edge—
That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children’s dower,
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Robert Browning.

LXXI
HOME THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA

Nobly, nobly Cape St. Vincent to the North-West died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish ’mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-East distance dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;
‘Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?’—say,
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

Robert Browning.

MACKAY

LXXII
A SONG OF ENGLAND

There’s a land, a dear land, where the rights of the free,
Though firm as the earth are as wide as the sea;
Where the primroses bloom, and the nightingales sing,
And the honest poor man is as good as a king.
Showery! Flowery!
Tearful! Cheerful!
England, wave-guarded and green to the shore!
West Land! Best Land!
Thy Land! My Land!
Glory be with her, and Peace evermore!

There’s a land, a dear land, where our vigour of soul,
Is fed by the tempests that blow from the Pole;
Where a slave cannot breathe, or invader presume,
To ask for more earth than will cover his tomb.
Sea Land! Free Land!
Fairest! Rarest!
Home of brave men, and the girls they adore!
Fearless! Peerless!
Thy Land! My Land!
Glory be with her, and Peace evermore!

Charles Mackay.

CLOUGH

LXXIII
GREEN FIELDS OF ENGLAND

Green fields of England! wheresoe’er
Across this watery waste we fare,
One image at our hearts we bear,
Green fields of England everywhere.

Sweet eyes in England, I must flee
Past where the waves’ last confines be,
Ere your loved smile I cease to see,
Sweet eyes in England, dear to me!

Dear home in England, safe and fast
If but in thee my lot lie cast,
The past shall seem a nothing past
To thee, dear home, if won at last;
Dear home in England, won at last!

Arthur Hugh Clough.

LXXIV
THE RALLY

Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal’d,
Your comrades chase e’en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light;
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!

Arthur Hugh Clough.

KINGSLEY

LXXV
ODE TO THE NORTH-EAST WIND

Welcome, wild North-Easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne’er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-Easter!
O’er the German foam;
O’er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter,
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir-forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
Off the curdled sky.
Hark! the brave North-Easter!
Breast-high lies the scent,
On by holt and headland,
Over heath and bent!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow.
Who can override you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O’er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South-wind
Breathe in lovers’ sighs,
While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies’ eyes.
What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
’Tis the hard grey weather
Breeds hard Englishmen.
What’s the soft South-Wester?
’Tis the ladies’ breeze,
Bringing home their true loves
Out of all the seas:
But the black North-Easter,
Through the snow-storms hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world.
Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come; and strong within us
Stir the Vikings’ blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!

Charles Kingsley.

YULE

LXXVI
THE BIRKENHEAD

Amid the loud ebriety of War,
With shouts of ‘La République’ and ‘La Gloire,’
The Vengeur’s crew, ’twas said, with flying flag
And broadside blazing level with the wave
Went down erect, defiant, to their grave
Beneath the sea! ’Twas but a Frenchman’s brag,
Yet Europe rang with it for many a year.
Now we recount no fable; Europe, hear!
And when they tell thee ‘England is a fen
‘Corrupt, a kingdom tottering to decay,
‘Her nerveless burghers lying an easy prey
‘For the first comer,’ tell how the other day
A crew of half a thousand Englishmen
Went down into the deep in Simon’s Bay!

Not with the cheer of battle in the throat,
Or cannon-glare and din to stir their blood,
But, roused from dreams of home to find their boat
Fast sinking, mustered on the deck they stood,
Biding God’s pleasure and their chief’s command.
Calm was the sea, but not less calm that band
Close ranged upon the poop, with bated breath
But flinching not though eye to eye with Death!

Heroes! Who were those heroes? Veterans steeled
To face the King of Terrors ’mid the scaith
Of many a hurricane and trenchèd field?
Far other: weavers from the stocking-frame;
Boys from the plough; cornets with beardless chin,
But steeped in honour and in discipline!

Weep, Britain, for the Cape whose ill-starred name,
Long since divorced from Hope suggests but shame,
Disaster, and thy captains held at bay
By naked hordes; but as thou weepest, thank
Heaven for those undegenerate sons who sank
Aboard the Birkenhead in Simon’s Bay!

Sir Henry Yule.

CORY

LXXVII
SCHOOL FENCIBLES

We come in arms, we stand ten score,
Embattled on the Castle green;
We grasp our firelocks tight, for war
Is threatening, and we see our Queen.
And ‘Will the churls last out till we
Have duly hardened bones and thews
For scouring leagues of swamp and sea
Of braggart mobs and corsair crews?’
We ask; we fear not scoff or smile
At meek attire of blue and grey,
For the proud wrath that thrills our isle
Gives faith and force to this array.
So great a charm is England’s right,
That hearts enlarged together flow,
And each man rises up a knight
To work the evil-thinker’s woe.
And, girt with ancient truth and grace,
We do our service and our suit,
And each can be, whate’er his race,
A Chandos or a Montacute.
Thou, Mistress, whom we serve to-day,
Bless the real swords that we shall wield,
Repeat the call we now obey
In sunset lands, on some fair field.
Thy flag shall make some Huron rock
As dear to us as Windsor’s keep,
And arms thy Thames hath nerved shall mock
The surgings of th’ Ontarian deep.
The stately music of thy Guards,
Which times our march beneath thy ken,
Shall sound, with spells of sacred bards,
From heart to heart, when we are men.
And when we bleed on alien earth,
We’ll call to mind how cheers of ours
Proclaimed a loud uncourtly mirth
Amongst thy glowing orange bowers.
And if for England’s sake we fall,
So be it, so thy cross be won,
Fixed by kind hands on silvered pall,
And worn in death, for duty done.
Ah! thus we fondle Death, the soldier’s mate,
Blending his image with the hopes of youth
To hallow all; meanwhile the hidden fate
Chills not our fancies with the iron truth.
Death from afar we call, and Death is here,
To choose out him who wears the loftiest mien;
And Grief, the cruel lord who knows no peer,
Breaks through the shield of love to pierce our Queen.

William Cory.

HOW

LXXVIII
A NATIONAL HYMN

To Thee, our God, we fly
For mercy and for grace;
O hear our lowly cry,
And hide not Thou Thy face!
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

Arise, O Lord of Hosts!
Be jealous for Thy Name,
And drive from out our coasts
The sins that put to shame!
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

The powers ordained by Thee
With heavenly wisdom bless,
May they Thy servants be,
And rule in righteousness!
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

Though vile and worthless, still,
Thy people, Lord, are we;
And for our God we will
None other have but Thee.
O Lord, stretch forth Thy mighty hand,
And guard and bless our Fatherland!

William Walsham How.

INGRAM

LXXIX
A NATION’S WEALTH

O England, thou hast many a precious dower;
But of all treasures it is thine to claim,
Prize most the memory of each sainted name,
That in thy realm, in field or hall or bower
Hath wrought high deeds or utter’d words of power—
Unselfish warrior, without fear or blame—
Statesman, with sleepless watch and steadfast aim
Holding his country’s helm in perilous hour—
Poet, whose heart is with us to this day
Embalm’d in song—or Priest, who by the ark
Of faith stood firm in troublous times and dark.
Call them not dead, my England! such as they
Not were but are; within us each survives,
And lives an endless life in others’ lives.

John Kells Ingram.

LUSHINGTON

LXXX
THE MUSTER OF THE GUARDS
(1854)

Lying here awake, I hear the watchman’s warning—
‘Past four o’clock’—on this February morning;
Hark! what is that?—there swells a joyous shiver
Borne down the wind o’er the voices of the river;
O’er the lordly waters flowing, ’tis the martial trumpets blowing,
’Tis the Grenadier Guards a-going—marching to the war.

Yes—there they go, through the February morning,
To where the engine whistles its shrill and solemn warning;
And the dull hoarse roar of the multitudes that cheer
Falls ever and anon with a faint crash on the ear;
’Mid the tears of wives and mothers, and the prayers of many others,
And the cheers of their brothers, they are marching to the war.

Cheer, boys, cheer! till you crack a thousand throats;
Cheer, boys, cheer! to the merry music’s notes;
Let the girls they leave behind them wave handkerchiefs and scarfs,
Let the hearty farewell ring through the echoing streets and wharfs;
Come—volley out your holloas—come, cheer the gallant fellows,
The gallant and good fellows, marching to the war.

Bridge of Waterloo!—let the span of each proud arch
Spring to the feet of the soldiers as they march;
For the last time they went forth, your glorious name was borne
Where the bullets rained like hail among the summer corn:
Ah! we’ll not forget too soon the great Eighteenth of June,
While the British Grenadier’s tune strikes up gaily for the war.

Bridge of Waterloo!—accept the happy omen,
For the staunchest friends are wrought out of the bravest foemen:
Guards of Waterloo!—the troops whose brunt you bore
Shall stand at your right hand upon the Danube’s shore;
And Trafalgar’s flags shall ride on the tall masts, side by side,
O’er the Black Sea and the Baltic, to sweep the waves of war.

Die, die away, o’er the bridge and up the street,
Shiver of their music, echo of their feet:
Dawn upon the darkness, chilly day and pale;
Steady rolling engine, flash along the rail;
For the good ship waits in port, with her tackle trim and taut,
And her ready funnels snort, till she bear them to the war.

Far, far away, they are bound across the billow,
Where the Russian sleeps uneasy on his last plundered pillow;
Where the Cross is stained with fraud by the giant evil-doer,
And the pale Crescent shines with a steady light and pure;
And their coats will be dim with dust, and their bayonets brown with rust,
Ere they conquer, as we trust, in the mighty game of war.

Peace, peace, peace, with the vain and silly song,
That we do no sin ourselves, if we wink at others’ wrong;
That to turn the second cheek is the lesson of the Cross,
To be proved by calculation of the profit and the loss:
Go home, you idle teachers! you miserable creatures!
The cannons are God’s preachers, when the time is ripe for war.

Peace is no peace, if it lets the ill grow stronger,
Merely cheating destiny a very little longer;
War, with its agonies, its horrors, and its crimes;
Is cheaper if discounted and taken up betimes:
When the weeds of wrath are rank, you must plough the poisoned bank,
Sow and reap the crop of Peace with the implements of war.

God, defend the right, and those that dare to claim it!
God, cleanse the earth from the many wrongs that shame it!
Give peace in our time, but not the peace of trembling,
Won by true strength, not cowardly dissembling;
Let us see in pride returning, as we send them forth in yearning,
Our Grenadier Guards from earning the trophies of the war.

Sir Franklin Lushington.

PALGRAVE

LXXXI
ALFRED THE GREAT

The Isle of Roses in her Lindian shrine,
Athena’s dwelling, gleam’d with golden song
Of Pindar, set in gold the walls along,
Blazoning the praise of Héraclés divine.
—O Poets, who for us have wrought the mine
Of old Romance, illusive pearl and gold,
Its star-fair maids, knights of heroic mould,
Ye lend the rays that on their features shine,

Ideal strength and beauty:—But O thou
Fair Truth!—to thee with deeper faith we bow;
Knowing thy genuine heroes bring with them
Their more than poetry. From these we learn
What men can be. By their own light they burn
As in far heavens the Pleiad diadem.

The fair-hair’d boy is at his mother’s knee,
A many-colour’d page before them spread,
Gay summer harvest-field of gold and red,
With lines and staves of ancient minstrelsy.
But through her eyes alone the child can see,
From her sweet lips partake the words of song,
And looks as one who feels a hidden wrong,
Or gazes on some feat of gramarye.

‘When thou canst use it, thine the book!’ she cried:
He blush’d, and clasp’d it to his breast with pride:—
‘Unkingly task!’ his comrades cry; in vain;
All work ennobles nobleness, all art,
He sees; head governs hand; and in his heart
All knowledge for his province he has ta’en.

Few the bright days, and brief the fruitful rest,
As summer-clouds that o’er the valley flit:—
To other tasks his genius he must fit;
The Dane is in the land, uneasy guest!—O
sacred Athelney, from pagan quest
Secure, sole haven for the faithful boy
Waiting God’s issue with heroic joy
And unrelaxing purpose in the breast!

The Dragon and the Raven, inch by inch,
For England fight; nor Dane nor Saxon flinch;
Then Alfred strikes his blow; the realm is free:—
He, changing at the font his foe to friend,
Yields for the time, to gain the far-off end,
By moderation doubling victory.

O much-vex’d life, for us too short, too dear!
The laggard body lame behind the soul;
Pain, that ne’er marr’d the mind’s serene control;
Breathing on earth heaven’s æther atmosphere,
God with thee, and the love that casts out fear!
O soul in life’s salt ocean guarding sure
The freshness of youth’s fountain sweet and pure,
And to all natural impulse crystal-clear:—

To service or command, to low and high
Equal at once in magnanimity,
The Great by right divine thou only art!
Fair star, that crowns the front of England’s morn,
Royal with Nature’s royalty inborn,
And English to the very heart of heart!

Francis Turner Palgrave.

LXXXII
TRAFALGAR

Heard ye the thunder of battle
Low in the South and afar?
Saw ye the flash of the death-cloud
Crimson o’er Trafalgar?
Such another day never
England will look on again,
When the battle fought was the hottest,
And the hero of heroes was slain!

For the fleet of France and the force of Spain were gather’d for fight,
A greater than Philip their lord, a new Armada in might:—
And the sails were aloft once more in the deep Gaditanian bay,
Where Redoubtable and Bucentaure and great Trinidada lay;

Eager-reluctant to close; for across the bloodshed to be
Two navies beheld one prize in its glory,—the throne of the sea!
Which were bravest, who should tell? for both were gallant and true;
But the greatest seaman was ours, of all that sail’d o’er the blue.

From Cadiz the enemy sallied: they knew not Nelson was there;
His name a navy to us, but to them a flag of despair;
’Twixt Algeziras and Aquamonte he guarded the coast,
Till he bore from Tavira south; and they now must fight or be lost;—
Vainly they steered for the Rock and the mid-land sheltering sea,
For he headed the Admirals round, constraining them under his lee,
Villeneuve of France, and Gravina of Spain; so they shifted their ground,
They could choose,—they were more than we;—and they faced at Trafalgar round;
Rampart-like ranged in line, a sea-fortress angrily towered!
In the midst, four-storied with guns, the dark Trinidada lower’d.

So with those—But, meanwhile, as against some dyke that men massively rear,
From on high the torrent surges, to drive through the dyke as a spear,
Eagle-eyed e’en in his blindness, our chief sets his double array,
Making the fleet two spears, to thrust at the foe any way, ...
‘Anyhow!—without orders, each captain his Frenchman may grapple perforce;
Collingwood first’ (yet the Victory ne’er a whit slacken’d her course)
‘Signal for action! Farewell! we shall win, but we meet not again!’
—Then a low thunder of readiness ran from the decks o’er the main,
And on,—as the message from masthead to masthead flew out like a flame,
England expects every man will do his duty,—they came.

—Silent they come:—While the thirty black forts of the foeman’s array
Clothe them in billowy snow, tier speaking o’er tier as they lay;
Flashes that thrust and drew in, as swords when the battle is rife;—
But ours stood frowningly smiling, and ready for death as for life.
—O in that interval grim, ere the furies of slaughter embrace,
Thrills o’er each man some far echo of England; some glance of some face!
—Faces gazing seaward through tears from the ocean-girt shore;
Faces that ne’er can be gazed on again till the death pang is o’er....
Lone in his cabin the Admiral kneeling, and all his great heart
As a child’s to the mother, goes forth to the loved one, who bade him depart
... O not for death, but glory! her smile would welcome him home!
—Louder and thicker the thunderbolts fall:—and silent they come.

As when beyond Dongola the lion, whom hunters attack,
Plagued by their darts from afar, leaps in, dividing them back;
So between Spaniard and Frenchman the Victory wedged with a shout,
Gun against gun; a cloud from her decks and lightning went out;
Iron hailing of pitiless death from the sulphury smoke;
Voices hoarse and parch’d, and blood from invisible stroke.
Each man stood to his work, though his mates fell smitten around,
As an oak of the wood, while his fellow, flame-shatter’d, besplinters the ground:—
Gluttons of danger for England, but sparing the foe as he lay;
For the spirit of Nelson was on them, and each was Nelson that day.

‘She has struck!’—he shouted—‘She burns, the Redoubtable! Save whom we can;
‘Silence our guns:’—for in him the woman was great in the man,
In that heroic heart each drop girl-gentle and pure,
Dying by those he spared;—and now Death’s triumph was sure!
From the deck the smoke-wreath clear’d, and the foe set his rifle in rest,
Dastardly aiming, where Nelson stood forth, with the stars on his breast,—
‘In honour I gained them, in honour I die with them!’ ... Then, in his place,
Fell ... ‘Hardy! ’tis over; but let them not know:’ and he cover’d his face.
Silent the whole fleet’s darling they bore to the twilight below:
And above the war-thunder came shouting, as foe struck his flag after foe.

To his heart death rose: and for Hardy, the faithful, he cried in his pain,—
‘How goes the day with us, Hardy?’...
‘’Tis ours’:—
Then he knew, not in vain
Not in vain for his comrades and England he bled: how he left her secure,
Queen of her own blue seas, while his name and example endure.
O, like a lover he loved her! for her as water he pours
Life-blood and life and love, lavish’d all for her sake, and for ours!
—‘Kiss me, Hardy!—Thank God!—I have done my duty!’—and then
Fled that heroic soul, and left not his like among men.

Hear ye the heart of a Nation
Groan, for her saviour is gone;
Gallant and true and tender,
Child and chieftain in one?
Such another day never
England will weep for again,
When the triumph darkened the triumph,
And the hero of heroes was slain.

Francis Turner Palgrave.

DOBELL

LXXXIII
A SEA ADVENTURE

‘How many?’ said our good captain,
‘Twenty sail and more!’
We were homeward bound,
Scudding in a gale with our jib towards the Nore;—
Right athwart our tack,
The foe came thick and black,
Like hell-birds and foul weather—you might count them by the score!

The Betsy Jane did slack
To see the game in view;
They knew the Union Jack,
And the tyrant’s flag we knew.
Our captain shouted, ‘Clear the decks!’ and the bo’sun’s whistle blew.

Then our gallant captain,
With his hand he seized the wheel,
And pointed with his stump to the middle of the foe,—
‘Hurrah, lads, in we go!’
(You should hear the British cheer,
Fore and aft!)

‘There are twenty sail,’ sang he,
‘But little Betsy Jane bobs to nothing on the sea!’
(You should hear the British cheer,
Fore and aft!)

‘See yon ugly craft
With the pennon at her main!
Hurrah, my merry boys,
There goes the Betsy Jane!’
(You should hear the British cheer,
Fore and aft!)

The foe, he beats to quarters, and the Russian bugles sound;
And the little Betsy Jane she leaps upon the sea.
‘Port and starboard!’ cried our captain;
‘Pay it in, my hearts!’ sang he.

‘We’re old England’s sons,
And we’ll fight for her to-day!’
(You should hear the British cheer,
Fore and aft!)
‘Fire away!’

In she runs,
And her guns
Thunder round.

Sydney Dobell.

ALEXANDER

LXXXIV
WAR

They say that ‘war is hell,’ the ‘great accursed,’
The sin impossible to be forgiven;
Yet I can look beyond it at its worst,
And still find blue in Heaven.

And as I note how nobly natures form
Under the war’s red rain, I deem it true
That He who made the earthquake and the storm
Perchance makes battles too!

The life He loves is not the life of span
Abbreviated by each passing breath,
It is the true humanity of man
Victorious over death,

The long expectance of the upward gaze,
Sense ineradicable of things afar,
Fair hope of finding after many days
The bright and morning star.

Methinks I see how spirits may be tried,
Transfigured into beauty on war’s verge,
Like flowers, whose tremulous grace is learnt beside
The trampling of the surge.

And now, not only Englishmen at need
Have won a fiery and unequal fray,—
No infantry has ever done such deed
Since Albuera’s day!

Those who live on amid our homes to dwell
Have grasped the higher lessons that endure,—
The gallant Private learns to practise well
His heroism obscure.

His heart beats high as one for whom is made
A mighty music solemnly, what time
The oratorio of the cannonade
Rolls through the hills sublime.

Yet his the dangerous posts that few can mark,
The crimson death, the dread unerring aim,
The fatal ball that whizzes through the dark,
The just-recorded name—

The faithful following of the flag all day,
he duty done that brings no nation’s thanks,
The Ama Nesciri[1] of some grim and grey
À Kempis of the ranks.

These are the things our commonweal to guard,
The patient strength that is too proud to press,
The duty done for duty, not reward,
The lofty littleness.

And they of greater state who never turned,
Taking their path of duty higher and higher,
What do we deem that they, too, may have learned
In that baptismal fire?

Not that the only end beneath the sun
Is to make every sea a trading lake,
And all our splendid English history one
Voluminous mistake.

They who marched up the bluffs last stormy week—
Some of them, ere they reached the mountain’s crown,
The wind of battle breathing on their cheek
Suddenly laid them down.

Like sleepers—not like those whose race is run—
Fast, fast asleep amid the cannon’s roar,
Them no reveillé and no morning gun
Shall ever waken more.

And the boy-beauty passed from off the face
Of those who lived, and into it instead
Came proud forgetfulness of ball and race,
Sweet commune with the dead.

And thoughts beyond their thoughts the Spirit lent,
And manly tears made mist upon their eyes,
And to them came a great presentiment
Of high self-sacrifice.

Thus, as the heaven’s many-coloured flames
At sunset are but dust in rich disguise,
The ascending earthquake dust of battle frames
God’s pictures in the skies.

William Alexander.

[1] The heading of a remarkable chapter in the De Imitatione Christi.

PROCTER

LXXXV
THE LESSON OF THE WAR

The feast is spread through England
For rich and poor to-day;
Greetings and laughter may be there,
But thoughts are far away;
Over the stormy ocean,
Over the dreary track,
Where some are gone, whom England
Will never welcome back.

Breathless she waits, and listens
For every eastern breeze
That bears upon its bloody wings
News from beyond the seas.
The leafless branches stirring
Make many a watcher start;
The distant tramp of steeds may send
A throb from heart to heart.

The rulers of the nation,
The poor ones at their gate,
With the same eager wonder
The same great news await.
The poor man’s stay and comfort,
The rich man’s joy and pride,
Upon the bleak Crimean shore
Are fighting side by side.

The bullet comes—and either
A desolate hearth may see;
And God alone to-night knows where
The vacant place may be!
The dread that stirs the peasant
Thrills nobles’ hearts with fear—
Yet above selfish sorrow
Both hold their country dear.

The rich man who reposes
In his ancestral shade,
The peasant at his ploughshare,
The worker at his trade,
Each one his all has perilled,
Each has the same great stake,
Each soul can but have patience,
Each heart can only break!

Hushed is all party clamour;
One thought in every heart,
One dread in every household,
Has bid such strife depart.
England has called her children;
Long silent—the word came
That lit the smouldering ashes
Through all the land to flame.

O you who toil and suffer,
You gladly heard the call;
But those you sometimes envy
Have they not given their all?
O you who rule the nation,
Take now the toil-worn hand—
Brothers you are in sorrow,
In duty to your land.
Learn but this noble lesson
Ere Peace returns again,
And the life-blood of Old England
Will not be shed in vain.

Adelaide Anne Procter.

MASSEY

LXXXVI
SIR RICHARD GRENVILLE’S LAST FIGHT

Our second Richard Lion-Heart
In days of great Queen Bess,
He did this deed, he played this part,
With true old nobleness,
And wrath heroic that was nursed
To bear the fiercest battle-burst,
When maddened foes should wreak their worst.

Signalled the English Admiral,
‘Weigh or cut anchors.’ For
A Spanish fleet bore down, in all
The majesty of war,
Athwart our tack for many a mile,
As there we lay off Florez Isle,
With crews half sick, all tired of toil.

Eleven of our twelve ships escaped;
Sir Richard stood alone!
Though they were three-and-fifty sail—
A hundred men to one—
The old Sea-Rover would not run,
So long as he had man or gun;
But he could die when all was done.

‘The Devil’s broken loose, my lads,
In shape of popish Spain:
And we must sink him in the sea,
Or hound him home again.
Now, you old sea-dogs, show your paws!
Have at them tooth and nail and claws!’
And then his long, bright blade he draws.

The deck was cleared, the boatswain blew;
The grim sea-lions stand;
The death-fires lit in every eye,
The burning match in hand.
With mail of glorious intent
All hearts were clad; and in they went,
A force that cut through where ’twas sent.

‘Push home, my hardy pikemen,
For we play a desperate part;
To-day, my gunners, let them feel
The pulse of England’s heart!
They shall remember long that we
Once lived; and think how shamefully
We shook them—One to fifty-three!’

With face of one who cheerily goes
To meet his doom that day,
Sir Richard sprang upon his foes;
The foremost gave him way;
His round shot smashed them through and through,
At every flash white splinters flew,
And madder grew his fighting few.

They clasp the little ship Revenge,
As in the arms of fire;
They run aboard her, six at once;
Hearts beat, hot guns leap higher;—
Through bloody gaps the boarders swarm,
But still our English stay the storm,
The bulwark in their breast is firm.

Ship after ship, like broken waves
That wash upon a rock,
Those mighty galleons fall back foiled,
And shattered from the shock.
With fire she answers all their blows;
Again—again in pieces strows
The girdle round her as they close.

Through all that night the great white storm
Of worlds in silence rolled;
Sirius with green-azure sparkle,
Mars in ruddy gold.
Heaven looked with stillness terrible
Down on a fight most fierce and fell—
A sea transfigured into hell!

Some know not they are wounded till
’Tis slippery where they stand;
Then each one tighter grips his steel,
As ’twere salvation’s hand.
Grim faces glow through lurid night
With sweat of spirit shining bright:
Only the dead on deck turn white.

At day-break the flame picture fades
In blackness and in blood;
There, after fifteen hours of fight,
The unconquered Sea-King stood
Defying all the power of Spain:
Fifteen armadas hurled in vain,
And fifteen hundred foemen slain!

About that little bark Revenge,
The baffled Spaniards ride
At distance. Two of their good ships
Were sunken at her side;
The rest lie round her in a ring,
As, round the dying forest-king
The dogs afraid of his death-spring.

Our pikes all broken, powder spent,
Sails, masts to shivers blown;
And with her dead and wounded crew
The ship was settling down.
Sir Richard’s wounds were hot and deep,
Then cried he, with a proud, pale lip,
‘Ho, Master Gunner, sink the ship!’

‘Make ready now, my mariners,
To go aloft with me,
That nothing to the Spaniard
May remain of victory.
They cannot take us, nor we yield;
So let us leave our battle-field,
Under the shelter of God’s shield.’

They had not heart to dare fulfil
The stern commander’s word:
With swelling hearts and welling eyes,
They carried him aboard
The Spaniards’ ship; and round him stand
The warriors of his wasted band:
Then said he, feeling death at hand,

‘Here die I, Richard Grenville,
With a joyful and quiet mind;
I reach a soldier’s end, I leave
A soldier’s fame behind.
Who for his Queen and country fought,
For Honour and Religion wrought,
And died as a true soldier ought.’

Earth never returned a worthier trust
For hand of Heaven to take,
Since Arthur’s sword, Excalibur,
Was cast into the lake,
And the King’s grievous wounds were dressed,
And healed, by weeping Queens, who blessed,
And bore him to a valley of rest.

Old heroes who could grandly do,
As they could greatly dare,
A vesture very glorious
Their shining spirits wear
Of noble deeds! God give us grace,
That we may see such face to face,
In our great day that comes apace!

Gerald Massey.

BROWN

LXXXVII
LAND, HO!

I know ’tis but a loom of land,
Yet is it land, and so I will rejoice,
I know I cannot hear His voice
Upon the shore, nor see Him stand;
Yet is it land, ho! land.

The land! the land! the lovely land!
‘Far off’ dost say? Far off—ah, blessed home!
Farewell! farewell! thou salt sea-foam!
Ah, keel upon the silver sand—
Land, ho! land.

You cannot see the land, my land,
You cannot see, and yet the land is there—
My land, my land, through murky air—
I did not say ’twas close at hand—
But—land, ho! land.

Dost hear the bells of my sweet land,
Dost hear the kine, dost hear the merry birds?
No voice, ’tis true, no spoken words,
No tongue that thou may’st understand—
Yet is it land, ho! land.

It’s clad in purple mist, my land,
In regal robe it is apparelléd,
A crown is set upon its head,
And on its breast a golden band—
Land, ho! land.

Dost wonder that I long for land?
My land is not a land as others are—
Upon its crest there beams a star,
And lilies grow upon the strand—
Land, ho! land.

Give me the helm! there is the land!
Ha! lusty mariners, she takes the breeze!
And what my spirit sees it sees—
Leap, bark, as leaps the thunderbrand—
Land, ho! land.

Thomas Edward Brown.

TREVALDWYN

LXXXVIII
THE GEORGE OF LOOE

O, ’twas merry down to Looe when the news was carried through
That the George would put to sea all with the morning tide;
And all her jolly crew hurrah’d till they were blue
When the captain said, ‘My lads, we’ll tan the Frenchman’s hide!’

For Captain Davy Dann was a famous fightin’ man,
Who lov’d the smell o’ powder and the thunder o’ the guns,
And off the coast of France often made the Frenchmen dance
To the music from his sloop of only ninety tons.

So at the break o’ day there were hundreds on the quay
To see the gallant ship a-warping out to sea;
And the Mayor, Daniel Chubb, was hoisted on a tub,
And he cried, ‘Good luck to Dann, with a three times three!’

For the news that came from Fowey was that ev’ry man and boy
And all the gallants there were expecting of a ship.
And the lively lads o’ Looe, they thought they’d watch her too,
Lest the Frenchman showed his heels and gave ’em all the slip.

So along by Talland Bay the good ship sailed away,
And the boats were out at Polperro to see what they could see;
And old Dann, he cried, ‘Ahoy! you’d better come to Fowey,
And help to blow the Mounseers to the bottom of the sea!’

Now, ’twas almost set o’ sun, and the day was almost done,
When we sighted of a frigate beating up against the wind;
And we put on all our sail till we came within her hail,
And old Dann politely asked, ‘Will you follow us behind?’

But the Frenchmen fore and aft only stood and grinned and laughed,
And never guessed the captain was in earnest, don’t you see?
For we’d only half her guns, and were only ninety tons,
And they thought they’d blow us easy to the bottom o’ the sea.

But our brave old Captain Dann—oh, he was a proper man!—
Sang out with voice like thunder unto ev’ry man aboard:
‘Now all you men of Looe just show what you can do,
And we’ll board her, and we’ll take her, by the help o’ the Lord!’

Then up her sides we swarm’d, and along her deck we storm’d,
And sword and pike were busy for the space of half an hour;
But before the day was done, tho’ they number’d two to one,
Her commander had to yield, and his flag to lower.

Then we turn’d our ship about, and while the stars came out
We tow’d our prize right cheerily past Fowey and Polperro;
And we blest old Captain Dann, for we hadn’t lost a man,
And our wounded all were doing well a-down below.

And when we came to Looe, all the town was there to view,
And the mayor in his chain and gown he cried out lustily,
‘Nine cheers for Captain Dann, and three for every man,
And the good ship George that carried them to victory!’

Benn Wilkes Jones Trevaldwyn.

ARNOLD

LXXXIX
THE FIRST DISTRIBUTION OF THE VICTORIA CROSS
(June 26, 1857)

To-day the people gather from the streets,
To-day the soldiers muster near and far;
Peace, with a glad look and a grateful, meets
Her rugged brother War.

To-day the Queen of all the English land,
She who sits high o’er Kaisers and o’er Kings,
Gives with her royal hand—th’ Imperial hand
Whose grasp the earth enrings—

Her Cross of Valour to the worthiest;
No golden toy with milky pearl besprent,
But simple bronze, and for a warrior’s breast
A fair, fit ornament.

And richer than red gold that dull bronze seems,
Since it was bought with lavish waste and worth
Whereto the wealth of earth’s gold-sanded streams
Were but a lack, and dearth.

Muscovite metal makes this English Cross,
Won in a rain of blood and wreath of flame;
The guns that thundered for their brave lives’ loss
Are worn hence, for their fame!

Ay, listen! all ye maidens laughing-eyed,
And all ye English mothers, be aware!
Those who shall pass before ye at noontide
Your friends and champions are.

The men of all the army and the fleet,
The very bravest of the very brave,
Linesman and Lord, these fought with equal feet,
Firm-planted on their grave.

The men who, setting light their blood and breath
So they might win a victor’s haught renown,
Held their steel straight against the face of Death,
And frowned his frowning down.

And some that grasped the bomb, all fury-fraught,
And hurled it far, to spend its spite away—
Between the rescue and the risk no thought—
Shall pass our Queen this day.

And some who climbed the deadly glacis-side,
For all that steel could stay, or savage shell;
And some whose blood upon the Colours dried
Tells if they bore them well.

Some, too, who, gentle-hearted even in strife,
Seeing their fellow or their friend go down,
Saved his, at peril of their own dear life,
Winning the Civil Crown.

Well done for them; and, fair Isle, well for thee!
While that thy bosom beareth sons like those;
‘This precious stone set in the silver sea’
Shall never fear her foes!

Sir Edwin Arnold.

GARNETT

XC
ABROAD

Forests that beard the avalanche,
Levels, empurpled slopes of vine,
Wrecks, sadly gay with flower and branch,
I love you, but you are not mine!

The sweet domestic sanctity
Fades in the fiery sun, like dew;
My Love beheld and passed you by,
My fathers shed no blood for you.

Pause, rambling clouds, while fancy fain
Your white similitude doth trace
To England’s cliffs, so may your rain
Fall blissful on your native place!

Richard Garnett.

GILBERT

XCI
THE ENGLISH GIRL

A wonderful joy our eyes to bless
In her magnificent comeliness,
Is an English girl of eleven stone two,
And five foot ten in her dancing shoe!
She follows the hounds, and on she pounds—
The ‘field’ tails off and the muffs diminish—
Over the hedges and brooks she bounds
Straight as a crow from find to finish.
At cricket, her kin will lose or win—
She and her maids, on grass and clover,
Eleven maids out—eleven maids in—
(And perhaps an occasional ‘maiden over’).

Go search the world and search the sea,
Then come you home and sing with me
There’s no such gold and no such pearl
As a bright and beautiful English girl!

With a ten-mile spin she stretches her limbs,
She golfs, she punts, she rows, she swims—
She plays, she sings, she dances, too,
From ten or eleven till all is blue!
At ball or drum, till small hours come
(Chaperon’s fan conceals her yawning),
She’ll waltz away like a teetotum,
And never go home till daylight’s dawning.
Lawn tennis may share her favours fair—
Her eyes a-dance and her cheeks a-glowing—
Down comes her hair, but what does she care?
It’s all her own, and it’s worth the showing!

Her soul is sweet as the ocean air,
For prudery knows no haven there;
To find mock-modesty, please apply
To the conscious blush and the downcast eye.
Rich in the things contentment brings,
In every pure enjoyment wealthy,
Blithe as a beautiful bird she sings,
For body and mind are hale and healthy.
Her eyes they thrill with a right good will—
Her heart is light as a floating feather—
As pure and bright as the mountain rill
That leaps and laughs in the Highland heather.

Go search the world and search the sea,
Then come you home and sing with me
There’s no such gold and no such pearl
As a bright and beautiful English girl!

William Schwenk Gilbert.

WATTS-DUNTON

XCII
THE BREATH OF AVON
TO ENGLISH-SPEAKING PILGRIMS ON SHAKESPEARE’S BIRTHDAY

I

Whate’er of woe the Dark may hide in womb
For England, mother of kings of battle and song—
Rapine, or racial hate’s mysterious wrong,
Blizzard of Chance, or fiery dart of Doom—
Let breath of Avon, rich of meadow-bloom,
Bind her to that great daughter sever’d long—
To near and far-off children young and strong—
With fetters woven of Avon’s flower perfume.
Welcome, ye English-speaking pilgrims, ye
Whose hands around the world are join’d by him,
Who make his speech the language of the sea,
Till winds of ocean waft from rim to rim
The Breath of Avon: let this great day be
A Feast of Race no power shall ever dim.

II

From where the steeds of earth’s twin oceans toss
Their manes along Columbia’s chariot-way;
From where Australia’s long blue billows play;
From where the morn, quenching the Southern Cross,
Startling the frigate-bird and albatross
Asleep in air, breaks over Table Bay—
Come hither, pilgrims, where these rushes sway
‘Tween grassy banks of Avon soft as moss!
For, if ye found the breath of ocean sweet,
Sweeter is Avon’s earthy, flowery smell,
Distill’d from roots that feel the coming spell
Of May, who bids all flowers that lov’d him meet
In meadows that, remembering Shakespeare’s feet,
Hold still a dream of music where they fell.

Theodore Watts-Dunton.

XCIII
ENGLAND STANDS ALONE

(‘ENGLAND STANDS ALONE—WITHOUT AN ALLY.’

—A Continental Newspaper)

‘She stands alone: ally nor friend has she,’
Saith Europe of our England—her who bore
Drake, Blake, and Nelson—Warrior-Queen who wore
Light’s conquering glaive that strikes the conquered free.
Alone!—From Canada comes o’er the sea,
And from that English coast with coral shore,
The old-world cry Europe hath heard of yore
From Dover cliffs: ‘Ready, aye ready we!’
‘Europe,’ saith England, ‘hath forgot my boys!—
Forgot how tall, in yonder golden zone
‘Neath Austral skies, my youngest born have grown
(Bearers of bayonets now and swords for toys)—
Forgot ’mid boltless thunder—harmless noise—
The sons with whom old England ‘stands alone!’

Theodore Watts-Dunton.

SWINBURNE

XCIV
ENGLAND

England, queen of the waves, whose green inviolate girdle enrings thee round,
Mother fair as the morning, where is now the place of thy foemen found?
Still the sea that salutes us free proclaims them stricken, acclaims thee crowned.
Times may change, and the skies grow strange with signs of treason, and fraud, and fear:
Foes in union of strange communion may rise against thee from far and near:
Sloth and greed on thy strength may feed as cankers waxing from year to year.

Yet, though treason and fierce unreason should league and lie and defame and smite,
We that know thee, how far below thee the hatred burns of the sons of night,
We that love thee, behold above thee the witness written of life in light.

Life that shines from thee shows forth signs that none may read not but eyeless foes:
Hate, born blind, in his abject mind grows hopeful now but as madness grows:
Love, born wise, with exultant eyes adores thy glory, beholds and glows.
Truth is in thee, and none may win thee to lie, forsaking the face of truth:
Freedom lives by the grace she gives thee, born again from thy deathless youth:
Faith should fail, and the world turn pale, wert thou the prey of the serpent’s tooth.

Greed and fraud, unabashed, unawed, may strive to sting thee at heel in vain:
Craft and fear and mistrust may leer and mourn and murmur and plead and plain:
Thou art thou: and thy sunbright brow is hers that blasted the strength of Spain.

Mother, mother beloved, none other could claim in place of thee England’s place:
Earth bears none that beholds the sun so pure of record, so clothed with grace:
Dear our mother, nor son nor brother is thine, as strong or as fair of face.
How shall thou be abased? or how shall fear take hold of thy heart? of thine,
England, maiden immortal, laden with charge of life and with hopes divine?
Earth shall wither, when eyes turned hither behold not light in her darkness shine.

England, none that is born thy son, and lives, by grace of thy glory, free,
Lives and yearns not at heart and burns with hope to serve as he worships thee;
None may sing thee: the sea-wind’s wing beats down our songs as it hails the sea.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

XCV
A JACOBITE’S EXILE
(1746)

The weary day rins down and dies,
The weary night wears through:
And never an hour is fair wi’ flower,
And never a flower wi’ dew.

I would the day were night for me,
I would the night were day:
For then would I stand in my ain fair land,
As now in dreams I may.

O lordly flow the Loire and Seine,
And loud the dark Durance:
But bonnier shine the braes of Tyne
Than a’ the fields of France;
And the waves of Till that speak sae still
Gleam goodlier where they glance.

O weel were they that fell fighting
On dark Drumossie’s day:
They keep their hame ayont the faem
And we die far away.

O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep,
But night and day wake we;
And ever between the sea-banks green
Sounds loud the sundering sea.

And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep,
But sweet and fast sleep they;
And the mool that haps them roun’ and laps them
Is e’en their country’s clay;
But the land we tread that are not dead
Is strange as night by day.

Strange as night in a strange man’s sight,
Though fair as dawn it be:
For what is here that a stranger’s cheer
Should yet wax blithe to see?

The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,
The fields are green and gold:
The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,
As ours at home of old.

But hills and flowers are nane of ours,
And ours are over sea:
And the kind strange land whereon we stand,
It wotsna what were we
Or ever we came, wi’ scathe and shame,
To try what end might be.

Scathe, and shame, and a waefu’ name,
And a weary time and strange,
Have they that seeing a weird for dreeing
Can die, and cannot change.

Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,
Though sair be they to dree:
But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,
Mair keen than wind and sea.

Ill may we thole the night’s watches,
And ill the weary day:
And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,
A waefu’ gift gie they;
For the sangs they sing us, the sights they bring us,
The morn blaws all away.

On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,
The burn rins blithe and fain:
There’s nought wi’ me I wadna gie
To look thereon again.

On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:
There sounds nae hunting-horn
That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
Round banks where Tyne is born.

The Wansbeck sings with all her springs,
The bents and braes give ear;
But the wood that rings wi’ the sang she sings
I may not see nor hear;
For far and far thae blithe burns are,
And strange is a’ thing near.

The light there lightens, the day there brightens,
The loud wind there lives free:
Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me
That I wad hear or see.

But O gin I were there again,
Afar ayont the faem,
Cauld and dead in the sweet, saft bed
That haps my sires at hame!

We’ll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,
And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
And the goodly towers thereby;
And none shall know but the winds that blow
The graves wherein we lie.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

XCVI
NEW YEAR’S DAY

New Year, be good to England. Bid her name
Shine sunlike as of old on all the sea:
Make strong her soul: set all her spirit free:
Bind fast her home-born foes with links of shame
More strong than iron and more keen than flame:
Seal up their lips for shame’s sake: so shall she
Who was the light that lightened freedom be,
For all false tongues, in all men’s eyes the same.

O last-born child of Time, earth’s eldest lord,
God undiscrowned of godhead, who for man
Begets all good and evil things that live,
Do thou, his new-begotten son, implored
Of hearts that hope and fear not, make thy span
Bright with such light as history bids thee give.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

XCVII
TO WILLIAM MORRIS

Truth, winged and enkindled with rapture
And sense of the radiance of yore,
Fulfilled you with power to recapture
What never might singer before—
The life, the delight, and the sorrow
Of troublous and chivalrous years
That knew not of night or of morrow,
Of hopes or of fears.

But wider the wing and the vision
That quicken the spirit have spread
Since memory beheld with derision
Man’s hope to be more than his dead.
From the mists and the snows and the thunders
Your spirit has brought for us forth
Light, music, and joy in the wonders
And charms of the North.

The wars and the woes and the glories
That quicken and lighten and rain
From the clouds of its chronicled stories,
The passion, the pride, and the pain,
Where echoes were mute and the token
Was lost of the spells that they spake,
Rise bright at your bidding, unbroken
Of ages that break.

For you, and for none of us other,
Time is not: the dead that must live
Hold commune with you as a brother
By grace of the life that you give.
The heart that was in them is in you,
Their soul in your spirit endures:
The strength of their song is the sinew
Of this that is yours.

Hence is it that life, everlasting
As light and as music, abides
In the sound of the surge of it, casting
Sound back to the surge of the tides,
Till sons of the sons of the Norsemen
Watch, hurtling to windward and lea,
Round England, unbacked of her horsemen,
The steeds of the sea.

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

HARDY

XCVIII
THE GOING OF THE BATTERY

Rain came down drenchingly; but we unblenchingly
Trudged on beside them through mirk and through mire,
They stepping steadily—only too readily!—
Scarce as if stepping brought parting-time nigher.

Great guns were gleaming there—living things seeming there—
Cloaked in their tar cloths, upnosed to the night:
Wheels wet and yellow from axle to felloe,
Throats blank of sound, but prophetic to sight.

Lamplight all drearily, blinking and blearily
Lit our pale faces outstretched for one kiss,
While we stood prest to them, with a last quest to them
Not to court peril that honour could miss.

Sharp were those sighs of ours, blinded those eyes of ours,
When at last moved away under the arch
All we loved. Aid for them each woman prayed for them
Treading back slowly the track of their march.

Someone said ‘Nevermore will they come! Evermore
Are they now lost to us!’ Oh, it was wrong!
Though may be hard their ways, some Hand will guard their ways—
Bear them through safely—in brief time or long.

Yet—voices haunting us, daunting us, taunting us,
Hint, in the night-time, when life-beats are low,
Other and graver things.... Hold we to braver things—
Wait we—in trust—what Time’s fullness shall show.

Thomas Hardy.

DOBSON

XCIX
BALLAD OF THE ARMADA