Patriotic Song: A book of English verse, being an anthology of the patriotic poetry of the British Empire, from the defeat of the Spanish Armada till the death of Queen Victoria
General
Patriotic Song: A book of English verse, being an anthology of the patriotic poetry of the British Empire, from the defeat of the Spanish Armada till the death of Queen Victoria
English poetry; Patriotic poetry, English
How long the ignoble sloth, how long
The trust in greatness not thine own?
Surely the lion’s brood is strong
To front the world alone!
How long the indolence, ere thou dare
Achieve thy destiny, seize thy fame--
Ere our proud eyes behold thee bear
A nation’s franchise, nation’s name?
The Saxon force, the Celtic fire,
These are thy Manhood’s heritage!
Why rest with babes and slaves? Seek higher
The place of race and age.
I see to every wind unfurled
The flag that bears the Maple-Wreath;
Thy swift keels furrow round the world
Its blood-red folds beneath;
Thy swift keels cleave the furthest seas;
Thy white sails swell with alien gales;
To stream on each remotest breeze
The black smoke of thy pipes exhales.
O Falterer, let thy past convince
Thy future,--all the growth, the gain,
The fame since Cartier knew thee, since
Thy shores beheld Champlain!
Montcalm and Wolfe! Wolfe and Montcalm!
Quebec, thy storied citadel
Attest in burning song and psalm
How here thy heroes fell!
O Thou that bor’st the battle’s brunt
At Queenston and at Lundy’s Lane,--
On whose scant ranks but iron front
The battle broke in vain!--
Whose was the danger, whose the day,
From whose triumphant throats the cheers,
At Chrysler’s Farm, at Chateauquay,
Storming like clarion-bursts our ears?
On soft Pacific slopes,--beside
Strange floods that Northward rave and fall--
Where chafes Acadia’s chainless tide--
Thy sons await thy call.
They wait; but some in exile, some
With strangers housed, in stranger lands;--
And some Canadian lips are dumb
Beneath Egyptian sands.
O mystic Nile! Thy secret yields
Before us; thy most ancient dreams
Are mixed with far Canadian fields
And murmur of Canadian streams.
But thou, my Country, dream not thou!
Wake, and behold how night is done;
How on thy breast, and o’er thy brow,
Bursts the uprising Sun!
_Charles George Douglas Roberts._
CAMPBELL
CXCVII
ENGLAND
England, England, England,
Girdled by ocean and skies,
And the power of a world, and the heart of a race,
And a hope that never dies.
England, England, England,
Wherever a true heart beats,
Wherever the rivers of commerce flow,
Wherever the bugles of conquest blow,
Wherever the glories of liberty grow,
’Tis the name that the world repeats.
And ye who dwell in the shadow
Of the century’s sculptured piles,
Where sleep our century-honoured dead
While the great world thunders overhead,
And far out miles on miles,
Beyond the smoke of the mighty town,
The blue Thames dimples and smiles;
Not yours alone the glory of old,
Of the splendid thousand years,
Of Britain’s might and Britain’s right
And the brunt of British spears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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