| |
| SET in this stormy Northern sea, | |
| Queen of these restless fields of tide, | |
| England! what shall men say of thee, | |
| Before whose feet the worlds divide? | |
| |
| The earth, a brittle globe of glass, | 5 |
| Lies in the hollow of thy hand, | |
| And through its heart of crystal pass, | |
| Like shadows through a twilight land, | |
| |
| The spears of crimson-suited war, | |
| The long white-crested waves of fight, | 10 |
| And all the deadly fires which are | |
| The torches of the lords of Night. | |
| |
| The yellow leopards, strained and lean, | |
| The treacherous Russian knows so well, | |
| With gaping blackened jaws are seen | 15 |
| To leap through hail of screaming shell. | |
| |
| The strong sea-lion of England’s wars | |
| Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, | |
| To battle with the storm that mars | |
| The star of England’s chivalry. | 20 |
| |
| The brazen-throated clarion blows | |
| Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, | |
| And the high steeps of Indian snows | |
| Shake to the tread of arméd men. | |
| |
| And many an Afghan chief, who lies | 25 |
| Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, | |
| Clutches his sword in fierce surmise | |
| When on the mountain-side he sees | |
| |
| The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes | |
| To tell how he hath heard afar | 30 |
| The measured roll of English drums | |
| Beat at the gates of Kandahar. | |
| |
| For southern wind and east and wind meet | |
| Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, | |
| England with bare and bloody feet | 35 |
| Climbs the steep road of wide empire. | |
| |
| O lonely Himalayan height, | |
| Gray pillar of the Indian sky, | |
| Where saw’st thou last in clanging fight | |
| Our wingèd dogs of Victory? | 40 |
| |
| The almond groves of Samarcand, | |
| Bokhara, where red lilies blow, | |
| And Oxus, by whose yellow sand | |
| The grave white-turbaned merchants go; | |
| |
| And on from thence to Ispahan, | 45 |
| The gilded garden of the sun, | |
| Whence the long dusty caravan | |
| Brings cedar and vermilion; | |
| |
| And that dread city of Cabool | |
| Set at the mountain’s scarped feet, | 50 |
| Whose marble tanks are ever full | |
| With water for the noonday heat, | |
| |
| Where through the narrow straight Bazaar | |
| A little maid Circassian | |
| Is led, a present from the Czar | 55 |
| Unto some old and bearded khan,— | |
| |
| Here have our wild war-eagles flown, | |
| And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; | |
| But the sad dove, that sits alone | |
| In England—she hath no delight. | 60 |
| |
| In vain the laughing girl will lean | |
| To greet her love with love-lit eyes: | |
| Down in some treacherous black ravine, | |
| Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. | |
| |
| And many a moon and sun will see | 65 |
| The lingering wistful children wait | |
| To climb upon their father’s knee; | |
| And in each house made desolate | |
| |
| Pale women who have lost their lord | |
| Will kiss the relics of the slain— | 70 |
| Some tarnished epaulette—some sword— | |
| Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. | |
| |
| For not in quiet English fields | |
| Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, | |
| Where we might deck their broken shields | 75 |
| With all the flowers the dead love best. | |
| |
| For some are by the Delhi walls, | |
| And many in the Afghan land, | |
| And many where the Ganges falls | |
| Through seven mouths of shifting sand. | 80 |
| |
| And some in Russian waters lie, | |
| And others in the seas which are | |
| The portals to the East, or by | |
| The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. | |
| |
| O wandering graves! O restless sleep! | 85 |
| O silence of the sunless day! | |
| O still ravine! O stormy deep! | |
| Give up your prey! Give up your prey! | |
| |
| And those whose wounds are never healed, | |
| Whose weary race is never won, | 90 |
| O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield | |
| For every inch of ground a son? | |
| |
| Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, | |
| Change thy glad song to song of pain; | |
| Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, | 95 |
| And will not yield them back again. | |
| |
| Wave and wild wind and foreign shore | |
| Possess the flower of English land— | |
| Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, | |
| Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. | 100 |
| |
| What profit now that we have bound | |
| The whole round world with nets of gold, | |
| If hidden in our heart is found | |
| The care that groweth never old? | |
| |
| What profit that our galleys ride, | 105 |
| Pine-forest like, on every main? | |
| Ruin and wreck are at our side, | |
| Grim warders of the House of pain. | |
| |
| Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? | |
| Where is our English chivalry? | 110 |
| Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, | |
| And sobbing waves their threnody. | |
| |
| O loved ones lying far away, | |
| What word of love can dead lips send? | |
| O wasted dust! O senseless clay! | 115 |
| Is this the end? is this the end? | |
| |
| Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead | |
| To vex their solemn slumber so; | |
| Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, | |
| Up the steep road must England go, | 120 |
| |
| Yet when this fiery web is spun, | |
| Her watchmen shall descry from far | |
| The young Republic like a sun | |
| Rise from these crimson seas of war. | |
| |
