Part 15
Yea, England, England, England, Till honour and valour are dead, Till the world’s great cannons rust, Till the world’s great hopes are dust, Till faith and freedom be fled, Till wisdom and justice have passed To sleep with those who sleep in the many-chambered vast, Till glory and knowledge are charnelled dust in dust, To all that is best in the world’s unrest, In heart and mind you are wed. While out from the Indian jungle To the far Canadian snows, Over the east and over the west, Over the worst and over the best, The flag of the world to its winds unfurled, The blood-red ensign blows.
_William Wilfred Campbell._
CXCVIII
THE WORLD-MOTHER
By crag and lonely moor she stands, This mother of half a world’s great men, And kens them far by sea-wracked lands, Or orient jungle or western fen.
And far out ’mid the mad turmoil, Or where the desert places keep Their lonely hush, her children toil, Or wrapt in wide-world honour sleep.
By Egypt’s sands or western wave, She kens her latest heroes rest, With Scotland’s honour o’er each grave, And Britain’s flag above each breast.
And some at home.--Her mother love Keeps crooning wind-songs o’er their graves, Where Arthur’s castle looms above, Or Strathy storms or Solway raves.
Or Lomond unto Nevis bends In olden love of clouds and dew; Where Trossach unto Stirling sends Greetings that build the years anew.
Out where her miles of heather sweep, Her dust of legend in his breast, ’Neath agèd Dryburgh’s aisle and keep, Her Wizard Walter takes his rest.
And her loved ploughman, he of Ayr, More loved than any singer loved By heart of man amidst those rare, High souls the world hath tried and proved;
Whose songs are first to heart and tongue, Wherever Scotsmen greet together, And, far-out alien scenes among, Go mad at the glint of a sprig of heather.
And he her latest wayward child, Her Louis of the magic pen, Who sleeps by tropic crater piled, Far, far, alas! from misted glen;
Who loved her, knew her, drew her so, Beyond all common poet’s whim;-- In dreams the whaups are calling low, In sooth her heart is woe for him.
And they, her warriors, greater none E’er drew the blade of daring forth, Her Colin under Indian sun, Her Donald of the fighting North.
Or he, her greatest hero, he Who sleeps somewhere by Nilus’ sands, Brave Gordon, mightiest of those free, Great captains of her fighting bands.
Yea, these and myriad myriads more, Who stormed the fort or ploughed the main, To free the wave or win the shore, She calls in vain, she calls in vain.
Brave sons of her, far severed wide By purpling peak or reeling foam; From western ridge or orient side, She calls them home, she calls them home.
And far, from east to western sea, The answering word comes back to her:-- ‘Our hands were slack, our hopes were free, We answered to the blood astir;
The life by Kelpie loch was dull, The homeward slothful work was done, We followed where the world was full, To dree the weird our fates had spun.
We built the brig, we reared the town, We spanned the earth with lightning gleam, We ploughed, we fought, ’mid smile and frown, Where all the world’s four corners team.
But under all the surge of life, The mad race-fight for mastery, Though foremost in the surgent strife, Our hearts went back, went back to thee.’
For the Scotsman’s speech is wise and slow, And the Scotsman’s thought it is hard to ken, But through all the yearnings of men that go, His heart is the heart of the northern glen.
His song is the song of the windy moor, And the humming pipes of the squirling din; And his love is the love of the shieling door, And the smell of the smoking peat within.
And nohap how much of the alien blood Is crossed with the strain that holds him fast, ‘Mid the world’s great ill and the world’s great good, He yearns to the Mother of men at last.
For there’s something strong and something true In the wind where the sprig of heather is blown; And something great in the blood so blue, That makes him stand like a man alone.
Yea, give him the road and loose him free, He sets his teeth to the fiercest blast, For there’s never a toil in a far countrie, But a Scotsman tackles it hard and fast.
He builds their commerce, he sings their songs, He weaves their creeds with an iron twist, And making of laws or righting of wrongs, He grinds it all as the Scotsman’s grist.
Yea, there by crag and moor she stands, This mother of half a world’s great men, And out of the heart of her haunted lands She calls her children home again.
And over the glens and the wild sea floors She peers so still as she counts her cost, With the whaups low calling over the moors, ‘Woe, woe, for the great ones she hath lost.’
_William Wilfred Campbell._
SCOTT
CXCIX
QUEBEC
Fierce on this bastion beats the noon-day sun; The city sleeps beneath me, old and grey; On convent roofs the quivering sunbeams play, And batteries guarded by dismantled gun. No breeze comes from the northern hills which run Circling the blue mist of the summer’s day; No ripple stirs the great stream on its way To those dim headlands where its rest is won.
What thunders shook these silent crags of yore! What smoke of battle rolled up plain and gorge While two worlds closed in strife for one brief span! What echoes still come ringing back once more! For on these heights of old God set His forge; His strokes wrought here the destinies of man.
_Frederick George Scott._
CC
IN MEMORIAM
Growing to full manhood now, With the care-lines on our brow, We, the youngest of the nations, With no childish lamentations, Weep, as only strong men weep, For the noble hearts that sleep, Pillowed where they fought and bled, The loved and lost, our glorious dead!
Toil and sorrow come with age, Manhood’s rightful heritage; Toil our arms more strong shall render, Sorrow make our heart more tender, In the heartlessness of time; Honour lays a wreath sublime-- Deathless glory--where they bled, Our loved and lost, our glorious dead!
Wild the prairie grasses wave O’er each hero’s new-made grave; Time shall write such wrinkles o’er us, But the future spreads before us Glorious in that sunset land-- Nerving every heart and hand, Comes a brightness none can shed, But the dead, the glorious dead!
Lay them where they fought and fell; Every heart shall ring their knell, For the lessons they have taught us, For the glory they have brought us. Tho’ our hearts are sad and bowed, Nobleness still makes us proud-- Proud of light their names will shed In the roll-call of our dead!
Growing to full manhood now, With the care-lines on our brow, We, the youngest of the nations, With no childish lamentations, Weep, as only strong men weep, For the noble hearts that sleep Where the call of duty led, Where the lonely prairies spread, Where for us they fought and bled, Our ever loved and glorious dead!
_Frederick George Scott._
SHERMAN
CCI
A WORD FROM CANADA
Lest it be said _One sits at ease Westward, beyond the outer seas, Who thanks me not that my decrees Fall light as love, nor bends her knees To make one prayer That peace my latter days may find_,-- Lest all these bitter things be said And we be counted as one dead, Alone and unaccredited I give this message to the wind:
Secure in thy security, Though children, not unwise are we; And filled with unplumbed love for thee,-- Call thou but once, if thou wouldst see! Where the grey bergs Come down from Labrador, and where The long Pacific rollers break Against the pines, for thy word’s sake Each listeneth,--alive, awake, And with thy strength made strong to dare.
And though our love is strong as spring, Sweet is it, too,--as sweet a thing As when the first swamp-robins sing Unto the dawn their welcoming. Yea, and more sweet Than the clean savour of the reeds Where yesterday the June floods were,-- Than perfumed piles of new cut fir That greet the forest-worshipper Who follows where the wood-road leads.
But unto thee are all unknown These things by which the worth is shown Of our deep love; and, near thy throne, The glory thou hast made thine own Hath made men blind To all that lies not to their hand,-- But what thy strength and theirs hath done: As though they had beheld the sun When the noon-hour and March are one Wide glare across our white, white land.
For what reck they of _Empire_,--they, Whose will two hemispheres obey? Why shouldst thou not count us but clay For them to fashion as they may In London-town? The dwellers in the wilderness Rich tribute yield to thee their friend; From the flood unto the world’s end Thy London ships ascend, descend, Gleaning--and to thy feet regress.
Yea, surely they think not at all Of us, nor note the outer wall Around thy realm imperial Our slow hands rear as the years fall; Which shall withstand The stress of time and night of doom; For we, who build, build of our love,-- Not as they built, whose empires throve And died,--for what knew they thereof In old Assyria, Egypt, Rome?
Therefore, in my dumb country’s stead, I come to thee, unheralded, Praying that Time’s peace may be shed Upon thine high, anointed head, --One with the wheat, The mountain pine, the prairie trail, The lakes, the thronging ships thereon, The valley of the blue Saint John, New France--her lilies,--not alone Empress, I bid thee, Hail!
_Francis Sherman._
STRINGER
CCII
CANADA TO ENGLAND
Sang one of England in his island home: ‘Her veins are million, but her heart is one;’ And looked from out his wave-bound homeland isle To us who dwell beyond its western sun.
And we among the northland plains and lakes, We youthful dwellers on a younger land, Turn eastward to the wide Atlantic waste, And feel the clasp of England’s outstretched hand.
For we are they who wandered far from home To swell the glory of an ancient name; Who journeyed seaward on an exile long, When fortune’s twilight to our island came.
But every keel that cleaves the midway waste Binds with a silent thread our sea-cleft strands, Till ocean dwindles and the sea-waste shrinks, And England mingles with a hundred lands.
And weaving silently all far-off shores A thousand singing wires stretch round the earth, Or sleep still vocal in their ocean depths, Till all lands die to make one glorious birth.
So we remote compatriots reply, And feel the world-task only half begun: ‘We are the girders of the ageing earth, Whose veins are million, but whose heart is one.’
_Arthur Stringer._
LIVINGSTON
CCIII
THE CANADIAN VOLUNTEERS
Wide are the plains to the north and the westward; Drear are the skies to the west and the north-- Little they cared, as they snatched up their rifles, And shoulder to shoulder marched gallantly forth. Cold are the plains to the north and the westward, Stretching out far to the grey of the sky-- Little they cared as they marched from the barrack-room, Willing and ready, if need be, to die.
Bright was the gleam of the sun on their bayonets; Firm and erect was each man in his place; Steadily, evenly, marched they like veterans; Smiling and fearless was every face; Never a dread of the foe that was waiting them; Never a fear of war’s terrible scenes; ‘Brave as the bravest,’ was stamped on each face of them; Half of them boys not yet out of their teens.
Many a woman gazed down at them longingly, Scanning each rank for her boy as it passed; Striving through tears just to catch a last glimpse of him, Knowing that glimpse might, for aye, be the last. Many a maiden’s cheek paled as she looked at them, Seeing the lover from whom she must part; Trying to smile and be brave for the sake of him, Stifling the dread that was breaking her heart.
Every heart of us, wild at the sight of them, Beat as it never had beaten before; Every voice of us, choked though it may have been, Broke from huzza to a deafening roar. Proud! were we proud of them? God! they were part of us, Sons of us, brothers, all marching to fight; Swift at their country’s call, ready each man and all, Eager to battle for her and the right.
Wide are the plains to the north and the westward, Stretching out far to the grey of the sky-- Little they cared as they filed from the barrack-room, Shoulder to shoulder, if need be, to die. Was there one flinched? Not a boy, not a boy of them; Straight on they marched to the dread battle’s brunt-- Fill up your glasses and drink to them, all of them, Canada’s call found them all at the front.
_Stuart Livingston._
VI
INDIA
DUTT
CCIV
THE HINDU’S ADDRESS TO THE GANGES
The waves are dashing proudly down Along thy sounding shore; Lashing, with all the storm of power, The craggy base of mountain tower, Of mosque, and pagod hoar, That darkly o’er thy waters frown, As if their moody spirit’s sway Could hush their wild and boist’rous play!
Unconscious roll the surges down, But not unconscious thou, Dread Spirit of the rolling flood, For ages worshipped as a God, And worshipped even now, Worshipped, and not by serf or clown, For sages of the mightiest fame Have paid their homage to thy name.
Canst thou forget the glorious past, When mighty as a God, With hands and heart unfettered yet, And eyes with slavish tears unwet, Each sable warrior trod Thy sacred shore, before the blast Of Moslem conquest hurried by, Ere yet the Mogul spear was nigh?
O’er crumbled thrones thy waters glide, Through scenes of blood and woe; And crown and kingdom, might and sway, The victor’s and the poet’s bay, Ignobly sleep below; Sole remnant of our ancient pride, Thy waves survive the wreck of time, And wanton free as in their prime.
Alas, alas, all round how drear, How mangled and how torn! Where are the damsels proud and gay, Where warriors in their dread array, ‘In Freedom’s temple born?’ Can heroes sleep? Can patriots fear? Or is the spark for ever gone, That lights the soul from sire to son?
I gaze upon thy current strong Beneath the blaze of day; What conjured visions throng my sight, Of war and carnage, death and flight! Thy waters to the Bay In purple eddies sweep along, And Freedom shrieking leaves the shrine, Alas! no longer now divine.
Roll, Gunga, roll in all thy pride Thy hallowed groves among! Still glorious thou in every mood, Thou boast of India’s widowhood, Thou theme of every song! Blent with the murmurs of thy tide The records of far ages lie, And live, for thou canst never die!
_Shoshee Chunder Dutt._
LYALL
CCV
THEOLOGY IN EXTREMIS
Oft in the pleasant summer years, Reading the tales of days bygone, I have mused on the story of human tears, All that man unto man has done, Massacre, torture, and black despair; Reading it all in my easy-chair.
Passionate prayer for a minute’s life; Tortured crying for death as rest; Husband pleading for child or wife, Pitiless stroke upon tender breast. Was it all real as that I lay there Lazily stretched on my easy-chair?
Could I believe in those hard old times, Here in this safe luxurious age? Were the horrors invented to season rhymes, Or truly is man so fierce in his rage? What could I suffer, and what could I dare? I who was bred to that easy-chair.
They were my fathers, the men of yore, Little they recked of a cruel death; They would dip their hands in a heretic’s gore, They stood and burnt for a rule of faith. What would I burn for, and whom not spare? I, who had faith in an easy-chair.
Now do I see old tales are true, Here in the clutch of a savage foe; Now shall I know what my fathers knew, Bodily anguish and bitter woe, Naked and bound in the strong sun’s glare, Far from my civilised easy-chair.
Now have I tasted and understood The old-world feeling of mortal hate; For the eyes all round us are hot with blood; They will kill us coolly--they do but wait; While I, I would sell ten lives, at least, For one fair stroke at that devilish priest,
Just in return for the kick he gave, Bidding me call on the prophet’s name; Even a dog by this may save Skin from the knife and soul from the flame; My soul! if he can let the prophet burn it, But life is sweet if a word may earn it.
A bullock’s death, and at thirty years! Just one phrase, and a man gets off it; Look at that mongrel clerk in his tears Whining aloud the name of the prophet; Only a formula easy to patter, And, God Almighty, what _can_ it matter?
‘Matter enough,’ will my comrade say Praying aloud here close at my side, ‘Whether you mourn in despair alway, Cursed for ever by Christ denied; Or whether you suffer a minute’s pain All the reward of Heaven to gain.’
Not for a moment faltereth he, Sure of the promise and pardon of sin; Thus did the martyrs die, I see, Little to lose and muckle to win; Death means Heaven, he longs to receive it, But what shall I do if I don’t believe it?
Life is pleasant, and friends may be nigh, Fain would I speak one word and be spared; Yet I could be silent and cheerfully die, If I were only sure God cared; If I had faith, and were only certain That light is behind that terrible curtain.
But what if He listeth nothing at all, Of words a poor wretch in his terror may say? That mighty God who created all To labour and live their appointed day; Who stoops not either to bless or ban, Weaving the woof of an endless plan.
He is the Reaper, and binds the sheaf, Shall not the season its order keep? Can it be changed by a man’s belief? Millions of harvests still to reap; Will God reward, if I die for a creed, Or will He but pity, and sow more seed?
Surely He pities who made the brain, When breaks that mirror of memories sweet, When the hard blow falleth, and never again Nerve shall quiver nor pulse shall beat; Bitter the vision of vanishing joys; Surely He pities when man destroys.
Here stand I on the ocean’s brink, Who hath brought news of the further shore? How shall I cross it? Sail or sink, One thing is sure, I return no more; Shall I find haven, or aye shall I be Tossed in the depths of a shoreless sea?
They tell fair tales of a far-off land, Of love rekindled, of forms renewed; There may I only touch one hand Here life’s ruin will little be rued; But the hand I have pressed and the voice I have heard, To lose them for ever, and all for a word!
Now do I feel that my heart must break All for one glimpse of a woman’s face; Swiftly the slumbering memories wake Odour and shadow of hour and place; One bright ray through the darkening past Leaps from the lamp as it brightens last,
Showing me summer in western land Now, as the cool breeze murmureth In leaf and flower--And here I stand In this plain all bare save the shadow of death; Leaving my life in its full noonday, And no one to know why I flung it away.
Why? Am I bidding for glory’s roll? I shall be murdered and clean forgot; Is it a bargain to save my soul? God, whom I trust in, bargains not; Yet for the honour of English race, May I not live or endure disgrace.
Ay, but the word, if I could have said it, I by no terrors of hell perplext; Hard to be silent and have no credit From man in this world, or reward in the next; None to bear witness and reckon the cost Of the name that is saved by the life that is lost.
I must be gone to the crowd untold Of men by the cause which they served unknown, Who moulder in myriad graves of old; Never a story and never a stone Tells of the martyrs who die like me, Just for the pride of the old countree.
_Sir Alfred Lyall._
WEBB
CCVI
THE RESIDENCY CHURCHYARD
From domes and palaces I bent my way Where, like some Titan by Jove’s thunder marred, From the old battered portal-towers that guard The storied ruins of a glorious fray. In patient stillness house and bastion lay, As they had fallen; for the fight was hard That saw their walls by myriad bullets scarred, When those few steadfast warriors stood at bay. There, by the English tombs of those that fell In that fierce struggle ’twixt the East and West, A few green mounds are seen, where peaceful rest India’s brave sons who perished fighting well For England too. What heart its feud can keep Beside these graves where our dark comrades sleep?
_William Trego Webb._
CCVII
THE MEMORIAL WELL
Speak gently, gently tread, And breathe one sigh profound; In memory of the dead Each spot is holy ground.
Theirs was no common doom, And some were young to die; Within this narrow tomb Women and infants lie.
They drank the bitter cup Of fear and anguish deep, Ere they were rendered up To death’s unruffled sleep.
Meek be our sorrow here, For them we could not save; And soft be Pity’s tear Above the children’s grave.
Quenched here be passion’s heat, Let strife and vengeance cease; Within their garden sweet Leave them to rest in peace.
For Nature hath made clean This place of human guilt; And now the turf is green Where English blood was spilt.
Earth’s healing hand hath spread Her flowers about their tomb; Around the quiet dead Trees wave and roses bloom.
Then lift not wrathful hands, But pass in silence by; Their carven Angel stands And watches where they lie.
_William Trego Webb._
CCVIII
SPRING IN CALCUTTA
The cool and pleasant days are past, The sun above the horizon towers; And Eastern Spring, arriving fast, Leads on too soon the sultry hours.
From greener height the palm looks down; A livelier hue the peepuls share; And sunlit poinsianas crown With golden wreaths their branches bare.
The ships that, by the river’s brim, At anchor, lift their shining sides Against the red sun’s westering rim, Swing to the wash of stronger tides.
No insects hum in sylvan bower; In spectral Stillness stand the trees;-- Come, blessing of our evening hour, Come forth and blow, sweet southern breeze!
To us the ocean freshness lend Which from the wave thy breath receives; Ripple these glassy tanks and send A murmur through the silent leaves!
See, blurred with amber haze, the sun ’Neath yon dim flats doth sink to rest; And tender thoughts, that homeward run, Move fondly with him to the west.
They leave these hot and weary hours, The iron fate that girds us round, And wander ’mid the meadow flowers And breezy heights of English ground.
The sun is set; we’ll dream no more; Vainly for us the vision smiles;-- Why did we quit thy pleasant shore, Our happiest of the Happy Isles!
_William Trego Webb._
DENNING
CCIX
THE LUCKNOW GARRISON
Still stand thy ruins ’neath the Indian sky, Memorials eloquent of blood and tears! O! for the spirit of those days gone by To wake a strain amid these later years Worthy of thee and thine! I seem to see, When thinking on thy consecrated dead, From thy scarred chambers start The heroes whom thy fiery travail bred And made thee--for us English--what thou art!