Songs of love and empire. Эдит Несбит

shrine,

      Wherever brave deeds are treasured and told,

      In the tale of the deeds of yore

      Like jewels of price in a chain of gold

      Are the name and the fame he bore.

      Wherever the track of our English ships

      Lies white on the ocean foam,

      His name is sweet to our English lips

      As the names of the flowers at home;

      Wherever the heart of an English boy

      Grows big with a deed of worth,

      Such names as his name have begot the same,

      Such hearts will bring it to birth.

      They say that his England, grown tired and old,

      Lies drunk by her heavy hoard;

      They say her hands have the grasp of the gold

      But not the grip of the sword,

      That her robe of glory is rent and shred,

      And that winds of shame blow through:

      Speak for your England, O mighty Dead,

      In the deeds you would have her do!

      Small skill have we to fight with the pen

      Who fought with the sword of old,

      For the sword that is wielded of Englishmen

      Is as much as one hand can hold.

      Yet the pen and the tongue are safe to use,

      And the coward and the wise choose these;

      But fools and brave were our English crews

      When Nelson swept the seas.

      ’Tis the way of a statesman to fear and fret,

      To ponder and pause and plan,

      But the way of Nelson was better yet,

      For that was the way of a man;

      They would teach us smoothness, who once were rough,

      They have bidden us palter and pray,

      But the way of Nelson was good enough,

      For that was the fighting way.

      If Nelson’s England must stoop to bear

      What never honour should brook,

      In vain does the tomb of her hero wear

      The laurel his brow forsook;

      In vain was the speech from the lips of her guns,

      If now must her lips refrain;

      In vain has she made us, her living sons,

      Her dead have made her in vain.

      So here with your bays be the dear head crowned,

      Lay flowers where the dear dust lies,

      And wreathe his column with laurel round

      To point his fame to the skies;

      But the greenest laurel that ever grew

      Is the laurel that’s yet to win;

      Crowned with his laurels he waits for You

      To bring Your laurels in!

      WATERLOO DAY

[June 18]

      This is the day of our glory; this is our day to weep.

      Under her dusty laurels England stirs in her sleep;

      Dreams of her days of honour, terrible days that are dead,

      Days of the making of story, days when the sword was red,

      When all her fate and her future hung on the naked blade,

      When by the sword of her children her place in the world was made,

      When Honour sounded the trumpet and Valour leapt to obey,

      And Heroes bought us the Empire that statesmen would sell to-day.

      England, wanton and weary, sunk in a slothful ease,

      Has slain in her wars her thousands, but her tens of thousands in peace:

      And the cowards grieve for her glory; their glory is in their shame;

      They are glad of the moth in her banners, and the rust on her shining name.

      Oh, if the gods would send us a balm for our sick, sad years,

      Let them send us a sight of the scarlet, and the sound of the guns in our ears!

      For valour and faith and honour – these grow where the red flower grows,

      And the leaves for the Nation’s healing must spring from the blood of her foes.

      A SONG OF PEACE AND HONOUR

[December, 1895]

TO THE QUEEN

      Lady and Queen, for whom our laurels twine,

      Upon whose head the glories of our land

      In one immortal diadem are met,

      Embodied England, in whose woman-hand

      The sceptre of Imperial sway is set,

      Receive this song of mine!

      For you are England, and her bays grow green

      To deck your brow, your goodness lends her grace,

      And in our hearts your face is as Her face;

      The Mother-Country is the Mother-Queen.

* * * * * *

      We, men of England, children of her might,

      With all our Mother’s record-roll of glory,

      Great with her greatness, noble by her name,

      Drank with our mothers’ milk our Mother’s story,

      And in our veins the splendour of her fame

      Made strong our blood and bright;

      And to her absent sons her name has been

      Familiar music heard in distant lands,