(On high to hold her fame Most faithful-foolish-fond; So thank I God my birth Surely in toil or fray Under an alien sky, Comfort it is to say: 'Of no mean city am I!' (Neither by service nor fee Come I to mine estate Mother of Cities to me, For I was born in her gate, Between the palms and the sea, Where the world-end steamers wait.) Now for this debt I owe, And for her far-borne cheer Must I make haste and go With tribute to her pier. DEDICATION And she shall touch and remit After the use of kings (Orderly, ancient, fit) My deep-sea plunderings, And purchase in all lands. And this we do for a sign Her power is over mine, And mine I hold at her hands! A SONG OF THE ENGLISH (1893) AIR is our lot-O goodly is our heritage! F* (Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!) For the Lord our God Most High He hath made the deep as dry, He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth! Yea, though we sinned-and our rulers went from right eousness Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garments' hem. Oh be ye not dismayed, Though we stumbled and we strayed, We were led by evil counsellors-the Lord shall deal with them! Hold ye the Faith-the Faith our Fathers sealed us; Single heart and single sword, Of your children in their bondage shall He ask them treble-tale! A SONG OF THE ENGLISH Keep ye the Law-be swift in all obedience Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford. Make ye sure to each his own That he reap where he hath sown; By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord! Hear now a song-a song of broken interludes-- May ye see the truth between As the singer knew and touched it in the ends of all the Earth! THE COASTWISE LIGHTS Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees; Our loins are battered 'neath us by the swinging, smoking seas. From reef and rock and skerry-over headland, ness, and voe The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships of England go! Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors; Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail. We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care, The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer; From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains The lover from the sea-rim drawn-his love in English lanes. We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool; We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull; To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the seaThe white wall-sided warships or the whalers of Dundee! Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guard-ports of the Morn! Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn! Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us, main to main, The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again! Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates; Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights! Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek, The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak! |