Part 6
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.