Part 8
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
King Philip had vaunted his claims; He had sworn for a year he would sack us; With an army of heathenish names He was coming to fagot and stack us; Like the thieves of the sea he would track us, And scatter our ships on the main; But we had bold Neptune to back us-- And where are the galleons of Spain?
His carackes were christened of dames To the kirtles whereof he would tack us; With his saints and his gilded stern-frames He had thought like an egg-shell to crack us; Now Howard may get to his Flaccus, And Drake to his Devon again, And Hawkins bowl rubbers to Bacchus-- For where are the galleons of Spain?
Let his Majesty hang to St. James The axe that he whetted to hack us; He must play at some lustier games Or at sea he can hope to out-thwack us; To his mines of Peru he would pack us To tug at his bullet and chain; Alas! that his Greatness should lack us!-- But where are the galleons of Spain?
ENVOY
Gloriana!--the Don may attack us Whenever his stomach be fain; He must reach us before he can rack us, ... And where are the galleons of Spain?
_Austin Dobson._
C
RANK AND FILE
O undistinguished Dead! Whom the bent covers, or the rock-strewn steep Shows to the stars, for you I mourn--I weep, O undistinguished Dead!
None knows your name. Blackened and blurred in the wild battle’s brunt, Hotly you fell ... with all your wounds in front:-- This is your fame!
_Austin Dobson._
BRIDGES
CI
THE FAIR BRASS
An effigy of brass Trodden by careless feet Of worshippers that pass, Beautiful and complete,
Lieth in the sombre aisle Of this old church unwreckt, And still from modern style Shielded by kind neglect.
It shows a warrior arm’d: Across his iron breast His hands by death are charmed To leave his sword at rest,
Wherewith he led his men O’ersea, and smote to hell The astonisht Saracen, Nor doubted he did well.
Would we could teach our sons His trust in face of doom, Or give our bravest ones A comparable tomb:
Such as to look on shrives The heart of half its care; So in each line survives The spirit that made it fair,
So fair the characters, With which the dusty scroll, That tells his title, stirs A requiem for his soul.
Yet dearer far to me, And brave as he are they, Who fight by land and sea For England at this day;
Whose vile memorials, In mournful marbles gilt, Deface the beauteous walls By growing glory built.
Heirs of our antique shrines, Sires of our future fame, Whose starry honour shines In many a noble name
Across the deathful days, Link’d in the brotherhood That loves our country’s praise, And lives for heavenly good.
_Robert Bridges._
SKRINE
CII
THE GENTLE
We come from tower and grange, Where the grey woodlands range, Folding chivalric halls in ancient ease; From Erin’s rain-wet rocks, Or where the ocean-shocks Thunder between the glimmering Hebrides; And many-spired cities grave, With terraced riverain hoar lapped by the storied wave.
Taught in proud England’s school, Her honour’s knightly rule, To do and dare and bear and not to lie, With priest’s or scholar’s lore Or statesman’s subtle store Of garnered wisdom, proved in councils high, We serve her bidding here, or far Shepherd the imperial flock under an alien star.
Leechcraft of heaven or earth We bear to scanted hearth And lightless doorway and dim beds of pain: With master-craft we steer Dusk labour’s march, and cheer His blind innumerable-handed train; Or in the cannon-shaken air Frankly the gentle die that simple men may dare.
The Asian moonbeams fall O’er our boys’ graves, and all The o’er-watching hills are names of their young glory: Sleep the blithe swordsman hands Beside red Ethiop sands, Or drear uprise of wintry promontory: The headstone of a hero slain Charms for his Empress-Isle each threshold of her reign.
O for the blood that fell So gladly given and well, O for all spirits that lived for England’s honour, Ere folly ruin or fear Her whom these held so dear, Ere fate or treason shame the crown upon her, Rise, brothers of her knightly roll, Close fast our order’s ranks and guard great England whole!
_John Huntley Skrine._
CIII
THE MOTHER AND THE SONS
Sons in my gates of the West, Where the long tides foam in the dark of the pine, And the cornlands crowd to the dim sky-line, And wide as the air are the meadows of kine, What cheer from my gates of the West?
‘Peace in thy gates of the West, England our mother, and rest, In our sounding channels and headlands frore The hot Norse blood of the northern hoar Is lord of the wave as the lords of yore, Guarding thy gates of the West.
But thou, O mother, be strong In thy seas for a girdle of towers, Holding thine own from wrong, Thine own that is ours. Till the sons that are bone of thy bone, Till the brood of the lion upgrown In a day not long, Shall war for our England’s own, For the pride of the ocean throne, Be strong, O mother, be strong!’
Sons in my gates of the morn, That steward the measureless harvest gold And temples and towers of the Orient old From the seas of the palm to Himálya cold, What cheer in my gates of the morn?
‘Fair as our India’s morn Thy peace, as a sunrise, is born. Where thy banner is broad in the Orient light There is law from the seas to Himálya’s height, For the banner of might is the banner of right. Good cheer in thy gates of the morn.’
From the Isles of the South what word? True South! long ago, when I called not, it came, And ‘England’s are ours’ ran the war-word aflame, ‘And a thousand will bleed ere the mother have shame!’ From my sons of the South what word?
‘Mother, what need of a word For the love that outspake with the sword? In the day of thy storm, in the clash of the powers, When thy children close round thee grown great with the hours, They shall know who have wronged thee if ‘England’s be ours.’ We bring thee a deed for a word.
But thou, O mother, be strong, In thy seas for a girdle of towers, Holding thine own from wrong, Thine own that is ours. Till the sons that are bone of thy bone, Till the brood of the lion upgrown In a day not long, Shall war for our England’s own, For the pride of the ocean throne, Be strong, O mother, be strong!’
_John Huntley Skrine._
HENLEY
CIV
ENGLAND, MY ENGLAND