Follow after--we are waiting, by the trails that we lost, For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host. Follow after--follow after--for the harvest is sown: By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own! [Illustration: FOLLOW AFTER. Follow after--follow after--for the harvest is sown: By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!] _When Drake went down to the Horn And England was crowned thereby, 'Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed Our Lodge--our Lodge was born (And England was crowned thereby!)_ _Which never shall close again By day nor yet by night, While man shall take his life to stake At risk of shoal or main (By day nor yet by night)_ _But standeth even so As now we witness here, While men depart, of joyful heart Adventure for to know (As now bear witness here!)_ II We have fed our sea for a thousand years And she calls us, still unfed, Though there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead: We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest To the shark and the sheering gull. If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full! [Illustration: LORD GOD, WE HA' PAID IN FULL! If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid in full!] There's never a flood goes shoreward now But lifts a keel we manned; There's never an ebb goes seaward now But drops our dead on the sand-- But slinks our dead on the sands forlore, From the Ducies to the Swin. If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' paid it in! We must feed our sea for a thousand years, For that is our doom and pride, As it was when they sailed with the _Golden Hind_, Or the wreck that struck last tide-- Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef Where the ghastly blue-lights flare. If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, If blood be the price of admiralty, Lord God, we ha' bought it fair! THE DEEP-SEA CABLES The wrecks dissolve above us; their dust drops down from afar-- Down to the dark, to the utter dark, where the blind white sea-snakes are. There is no sound, no echo of sound, in the deserts of the deep, Or the great grey level plains of ooze where the shell-buried cables creep. Here in the womb of the world--here on the tie-ribs of earth Words, and the words of men, flicker and flutter and beat-- Warning, sorrow and gain, salutation and mirth-- For a Power troubles the Still that has neither voice nor feet.