Chapter 2
O pastoral heart of England! like a psalm Of green days telling with a quiet beat-- O wave into the sunset flowing calm! O tired lark descending on the wheat! Lies it all peace beyond that western fold Where now the lingering shepherd sees his star Rise upon Malvern? Paints an Age of Gold Yon cloud with prophecies of linked ease-- Lulling this Land, with hills drawn up like knees, To drowse beside her implements of war?
Man shall outlast his battles. They have swept Avon from Naseby Field to Severn Ham; And Evesham's dedicated stones have stepp'd Down to the dust with Montfort's oriflamme. Nor the red tear nor the reflected tower Abides; but yet these eloquent grooves remain, Worn in the sandstone parapet hour by hour By labouring bargemen where they shifted ropes. E'en so shall man turn back from violent hopes To Adam's cheer, and toil with spade again.
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Ay, and his mother Nature, to whose lap Like a repentant child at length he hies, Not in the whirlwind or the thunder-clap Proclaims her more tremendous mysteries: But when in winter's grave, bereft of light, With still, small voice divinelier whispering --Lifting the green head of the aconite, Feeding with sap of hope the hazel-shoot-- She feels God's finger active at the root, Turns in her sleep, and murmurs of the Spring.
_Arthur Quiller-Couch._
8. BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS
Sombre and rich, the skies; Great glooms, and starry plains. Gently the night wind sighs; Else a vast silence reigns.
The splendid silence clings Around me: and around The saddest of all kings Crowned, and again discrowned.
Comely and calm, he rides Hard by his own Whitehall: Only the night wind glides: No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court; and yet, The stars his courtiers are: Stars in their stations set; And every wandering star.
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Alone he rides, alone, The fair and fatal king: Dark night is all his own, That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate: The stars; or those sad eyes? Which are more still and great: Those brows; or the dark skies?
Although his whole heart yearn In passionate tragedy: Never was face so stern With sweet austerity.
Vanquished in life, his death By beauty made amends: The passing of his breath Won his defeated ends.
Brief life and hapless? Nay: Through death, life grew sublime. _Speak after sentence?_ Yea: And to the end of time.
Armoured he rides, his head Bare to the stars of doom: He triumphs now, the dead, Beholding London's gloom.
Our wearier spirit faints, Vexed in the world's employ:
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His soul was of the saints; And art to him was joy.
King, tried in fires of woe! Men hunger for thy grace: And through the night I go, Loving thy mournful face.
Yet when the city sleeps; When all the cries are still: The stars and heavenly deeps Work out a perfect will.
_Lionel Johnson._
10. TO THE FORGOTTEN DEAD
To the forgotten dead, Come, let us drink in silence ere we part. To every fervent yet resolvèd heart That brought its tameless passion and its tears, Renunciation and laborious years, To lay the deep foundations of our race, To rear its stately fabric overhead And light its pinnacles with golden grace. To the unhonoured dead.
To the forgotten dead, Whose dauntless hands were stretched to grasp the rein Of Fate and hurl into the void again Her thunder-hoofed horses, rushing blind Earthward along the courses of the wind.
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Among the stars, along the wind in vain Their souls were scattered and their blood was shed, And nothing, nothing of them doth remain. To the thrice-perished dead.
_Margaret L. Woods._
11. DRAKE'S DRUM
Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships, Wi' sailor-lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe, An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin', He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.
Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. "Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, Strike et when your powder's runnin' low; If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven, An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago."
Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come, (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum, An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
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Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound, Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin' They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!
_Henry Newbolt._
12. THE MOON IS UP
The moon is up: the stars are bright The wind is fresh and free! We're out to seek for gold to-night Across the silver sea! The world was growing grey and old: Break out the sails again! We're out to seek a Realm of Gold Beyond the Spanish Main.
We're sick of all the cringing knees, The courtly smiles and lies! God, let Thy singing Channel breeze Lighten our hearts and eyes! Let love no more be bought and sold For earthly loss or gain; We're out to seek an Age of Gold Beyond the Spanish Main.
Beyond the light of far Cathay, Beyond all mortal dreams, Beyond the reach of night and day Our El Dorado gleams,
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Revealing--as the skies unfold-- A star without a stain, The Glory of the Gates of Gold Beyond the Spanish Main.
_Alfred Noyes._
13. MINORA SIDERA
Sitting at times over a hearth that burns With dull domestic glow, My thought, leaving the book, gratefully turns To you who planned it so.
Not of the great only you deigned to tell-- The stars by which we steer-- But lights out of the night that flashed, and fell To night again, are here.
Such as were those, dogs of an elder day, Who sacked the golden ports, And those later who dared grapple their prey Beneath the harbour forts:
Some with flag at the fore, sweeping the world To find an equal fight, And some who joined war to their trade, and hurled Ships of the line in flight.
Whether their fame centuries long should ring They cared not over-much, But cared greatly to serve God and the king, And keep the Nelson touch;
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And fought to build Britain above the tide Of wars and windy fate; And passed content, leaving to us the pride Of lives obscurely great.
_Henry Newbolt._
14. MUSING ON A GREAT SOLDIER
_Fear? Yes_ . . . I heard you saying In an Oxford common-room Where the hearth-light's kindly raying Stript the empanelled walls of gloom, Silver groves of candles playing In the soft wine turned to bloom-- At the word I see you now Blandly push the wine-boat's prow Round the mirror of that scored Yellow old mahogany board-- _I confess to one fear! this, To be buried alive!_
My Lord, Your fancy has played amiss.
Fear not. When in farewell While guns toll like a bell And the bell tolls like a gun Westminster towers call Folk and state to your funeral, And robed in honours won, Beneath the cloudy pall Of the lifted shreds of glory
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You lie in the last stall Of that grey dormitory-- Fear not lest mad mischance Should find you lapt and shrouded Alive in helpless trance Though seeming death-beclouded:
For long ere so you rest On that transcendent bier Shall we not have addressed One summons, one last test, To your reluctant ear? O believe it! we shall have uttered In ultimate entreaty A name your soul would hear Howsoever thickly shuttered; We shall have stooped and muttered _England!_ in your cold ear. . . . Then, if your great pulse leap No more, nor your cheek burn, Enough; then shall we learn 'Tis time for us to weep.
_Herbert Trench._
16. HE FELL AMONG THIEVES
"Ye have robbed," said he, "ye have slaughtered and made an end, Take your ill-got plunder, and bury the dead; What will ye more of your guest and sometime friend?" "Blood for our blood," they said.
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He laughed: "If one may settle the score for five, I am ready; but let the reckoning stand till day: I have loved the sunlight as dearly as any alive." "You shall die at dawn," said they.
He flung his empty revolver down the slope, He climb'd alone to the Eastward edge of the trees; All night long in a dream untroubled of hope He brooded, clasping his knees.
He did not hear the monotonous roar that fills The ravine where the Yassin river sullenly flows; He did not see the starlight on the Laspur hills, Or the far Afghan snows.
He saw the April noon on his books aglow, The wistaria trailing in at the window wide; He heard his father's voice from the terrace below Calling him down to ride.
He saw the gray little church across the park, The mounds that hid the loved and honoured dead; The Norman arch, the chancel softly dark, The brasses black and red.
He saw the School Close, sunny and green, The runner beside him, the stand by the parapet wall, The distant tape, and the crowd roaring between His own name over all.
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He saw the dark wainscot and timbered roof, The long tables, and the faces merry and keen; The College Eight and their trainer dining aloof, The Dons on the daïs serene.
He watch'd the liner's stem ploughing the foam, He felt her trembling speed and the thrash of her screw; He heard her passengers' voices talking of home, He saw the flag she flew.
And now it was dawn. He rose strong on his feet, And strode to his ruin'd camp below the wood; He drank the breath of the morning cool and sweet; His murderers round him stood.
Light on the Laspur hills was broadening fast, The blood-red snow-peaks chilled to a dazzling white; He turn'd, and saw the golden circle at last, Cut by the eastern height.
"O glorious Life, Who dwellest in earth and sun, I have lived, I praise and adore Thee." A sword swept. Over the pass the voices one by one Faded, and the hill slept.
_Henry Newbolt._
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16. ENGLAND
Shall we but turn from braggart pride Our race to cheapen and defame? Before the world to wail, to chide, And weakness as with vaunting claim? Ere the hour strikes, to abdicate The steadfast spirit that made us great, And rail with scolding tongues at fate?
If England's heritage indeed Be lost, be traded quite away For fatted sloth and fevered greed; If, inly rotting, we decay; Suffer we then what doom we must, But silent, as befits the dust Of them whose chastisement was just.
But rather, England, rally thou Whatever breathes of faith that still Within thee keeps the undying vow And dedicates the constant will. For such yet lives, if not among The boasters, or the loud of tongue, Who cry that England's knell is rung.
The fault of heart, the small of brain, In thee but their own image find; Beyond such thoughts as these contain A mightier Presence is enshrined. Nor meaner than their birthright grown Shall these thy latest sons be shown, So thou but use them for thine own.
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By those great spirits burning high In our home's heaven, that shall be stars To shine, when all is history And rumour of old, idle wars; By all those hearts which proudly bled To make this rose of England red; The living, the triumphant dead;
By all who suffered and stood fast That Freedom might the weak uphold, And in men's ways of wreck and waste Justice her awful flower unfold; By all who out of grief and wrong In passion's art of noble song Made Beauty to our speech belong;
By those adventurous ones who went Forth overseas, and, self-exiled, Sought from far isle and continent Another England in the wild, For whom no drums beat, yet they fought Alone, in courage of a thought Which an unbounded future wrought;
Yea, and yet more by those to-day Who toil and serve for naught of gain, That in thy purer glory they May melt their ardour and their pain; By these and by the faith of these, The faith that glorifies and frees, Thy lands call on thee, and thy seas.
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If thou hast sinned, shall we forsake Thee, or the less account us thine? Thy sores, thy shames on us we take. Flies not for us thy famed ensign? Be ours to cleanse and to atone; No man this burden bears alone; England, our best shall be thine own.
Lift up thy cause into the light! Put all the factious lips to shame! Our loves, our faiths, our hopes unite And strike into a single flame! Whatever from without betide, O purify the soul of pride In us; thy slumbers cast aside; And of thy sons be justified!
_Laurence Binyon._
17. THE VOLUNTEER
"He leapt to arms unbidden, Unneeded, over-bold; His face by earth is hidden, His heart in earth is cold.
"Curse on the reckless daring That could not wait the call, The proud fantastic bearing That would be first to fall!"
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O tears of human passion, Blur not the image true; This was not folly's fashion, This was the man we knew.
_Henry Newbolt._
18. MANY SISTERS TO MANY BROTHERS
When we fought campaigns (in the long Christmas rains) With soldiers spread in troops on the floor, I shot as straight as you, my losses were as few, My victories as many, or more. And when in naval battle, amid cannon's rattle, Fleet met fleet in the bath, My cruisers were as trim, my battleships as grim, My submarines cut as swift a path. Or, when it rained too long, and the strength of the strong Surged up and broke a way with blows, I was as fit and keen, my fists hit as clean, Your black eye matched my bleeding nose. Was there a scrap or ploy in which you, the boy, Could better me? You could not climb higher, Ride straighter, run as quick (and to smoke made you sick) . . . But I sit here, and you're under fire.
Oh, it's you that have the luck, out there in blood and muck: You were born beneath a kindly star;
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All we dreamt, I and you, you can really go and do, And I can't, the way things are. In a trench you are sitting, while I am knitting A hopeless sock that never gets done. Well, here's luck, my dear;--and you've got it, no fear; But for me . . . a war is poor fun.
_Rose Macaulay._
19. THE DEFENDERS
His wage of rest at nightfall still He takes, who sixty years has known Of ploughing over Cotsall hill And keeping trim the Cotsall stone.
He meditates the dusk, and sees Folds of his wonted shepherdings And lands of stubble and tall trees Becoming insubstantial things.
And does he see on Cotsall hill-- Thrown even to the central shire-- The funnelled shapes forbidding still The stranger from his cottage fire?
_John Drinkwater._
20. THE DEAD
These hearts were woven of human joys and cares, Washed marvellously with sorrow, swift to mirth. The years had given them kindness. Dawn was theirs, And sunset, and the colours of the earth.
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These had seen movement, and heard music; known Slumber and waking; loved; gone proudly friended; Felt the quick stir of wonder; sat alone; Touched flowers and furs, and cheeks. All this is ended.
There are waters blown by changing winds to laughter And lit by the rich skies, all day. And after, Frost, with a gesture, stays the waves that dance And wandering loveliness. He leaves a white Unbroken glory, a gathered radiance, A width, a shining peace, under the night.
_Rupert Brooke._
21. THE SOLDIER
If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
_Rupert Brooke._
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22. FOR THE FALLEN
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea. Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres. There is music in the midst of desolation And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted, They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; They sit no more at familiar tables of home; They have no lot in our labour of the day-time: They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound, Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, To the innermost heart of their own land they are known As the stars are known to the Night;
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As the stars that shall be bright when we are duet Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, To the end, to the end, they remain.
_Laurence Binyon._
23. SHADOWS AND LIGHTS
What gods have met in battle to arouse This whirling shadow of invisible things, These hosts that writhe amid the shattered sods? O Father, and O Mother of the gods, Is there some trouble in the heavenly house? We who are captained by its unseen kings Wonder what thrones are shaken in the skies, What powers who held dominion o'er our will Let fall the sceptre, and what destinies The younger gods may drive us to fulfil.
Have they not swayed us, earth's invisible lords, With whispers and with breathings from the dark? The very border stones of nations mark Where silence swallowed some wild prophet's words That rang but for an instant and were still, Yet were so burthened with eternity, They maddened all who heard to work their will, To raise the lofty temple on the hill, And many a glittering thicket of keen swords Flashed out to make one law for land and sea, That earth might move with heaven in company.
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The cities that to myriad beauty grew Were altars raised unto old gods who died, And they were sacrificed in ruins to The younger gods who took their place of pride; They have no brotherhood, the deified, No high companionship of throne by throne, But will their beauty still to be alone.
What is a nation but a multitude United by some god-begotten mood, Some hope of liberty or dream of power That have not with each other brotherhood But warred in spirit from their natal hour, Their hatred god-begotten as their love Reverberations of eternal strife? For all that fury breathed in human life, Are ye not guilty, answer, ye above?
Ah, no, the circle of the heavenly ones, That ring of burning, grave, inflexible powers, Array in harmony amid the deep The shining legionaries of the suns, That through their day from dawn to twilight keep The peace of heaven, and have no feuds like ours. The morning Stars their labours of the dawn Close at the advent of the Solar Kings, And these with joy their sceptres yield, withdrawn When the still Evening Stars begin their reign, And twilight time is thrilled with homing wings To the All-Father being turned again.
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No, not on high begin divergent ways, The galaxies of interlinked lights Rejoicing on each other's beauty gaze, 'Tis we who do make errant all the rays That stream upon us from the astral heights. Love in our thickened air too redly burns; And unto vanity our beauty turns; Wisdom, that gently whispers us to part From evil, swells to hatred in the heart. Dark is the shadow of invisible things On us who look not up, whose vision fails. The glorious shining of the heavenly kings To mould us in their image naught avails, They weave a robe of many-coloured fire To garb the spirits thronging in the deep, And in the upper air its splendours keep Pure and unsullied, but below it trails Darkling and glimmering in our earthly mire.
With eyes bent ever earthwards we are swayed But by the shadows of eternal light, And shadow against shadow is arrayed So that one dark may dominate the night. Though kindred are the lights that cast the shade, We look not up, nor see how, side by side, The high originals of all our pride In crowned and sceptred brotherhood are throned, Compassionate of our blindness and our hate That own the godship but the love disowned. Ah, let us for a little while abate The outward roving eye, and seek within
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Where spirit unto spirit is allied; There, in our inmost being, we may win The joyful vision of the heavenly wise To see the beauty in each other's eyes.
_A. E._
24. BRUMANA
Oh shall I never never be home again! Meadows of England shining in the rain Spread wide your daisied lawns: your ramparts green With briar fortify, with blossom screen Till my far morning--and O streams that slow And pure and deep through plains and playlands go, For me your love and all your kingcups store, And--dark militia of the southern shore, Old fragrant friends--preserve me the last lines Of that long saga which you sang me, pines, When, lonely boy, beneath the chosen tree I listened, with my eyes upon the sea.
O traitor pines, you sang what life has found The falsest of fair tales. Earth blew a far-horn prelude all around, That native music of her forest home, While from the sea's blue fields and syren dales Shadows and light noon spectres of the foam Riding the summer gales On aery viols plucked an idle sound.
Hearing you sing, O trees, Hearing you murmur, "There are older seas, That beat on vaster sands,
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Where the wise snailfish move their pearly towers To carven rocks and sculptured promont'ries," Hearing you whisper, "Lands Where blaze the unimaginable flowers."
Beneath me in the valley waves the palm, Beneath, beyond the valley, breaks the sea; Beneath me sleep in mist and light and calm Cities of Lebanon, dream-shadow-dim, Where Kings of Tyre and Kings of Tyre did rule In ancient days in endless dynasty, And all around the snowy mountains swim Like mighty swans, afloat in heaven's pool.