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
Not yours alone, for the great world round
Ready to dare and do,
Scot and Celt and Norman and Dane,
With the Northman’s sinew and heart and brain,
And the Northman’s courage for blessing or bane
Are England’s heroes too.
North and south and east and west,
Wherever their triumphs be,
Their glory goes home to the ocean-girt isle
Where the heather blooms and the roses smile
With the green isle under her lee;
And if ever the smoke of an alien gun
Should threaten her iron repose,
Shoulder to shoulder against the world,
Face to face with her foes,
Scot and Celt and Saxon are one
Where the glory of England goes.
And we of the newer and vaster West,
Where the great war banners are furled,
And commerce hurries her teeming hosts,
And the cannon are silent along our coasts,
Saxon and Gaul, Canadians claim
A part in the glory and pride and aim
Of the Empire that girdles the world.
England, England, England,
Wherever the daring heart
By Arctic floe or torrid strand
Thy heroes play their part;
For as long as conquest holds the earth,
Or commerce sweeps the sea,
By orient jungle or western plain,
Will the Saxon spirit be.
And whatever the people that dwell beneath,
Or whatever the alien tongue,
Over the freedom and peace of the world
Is the flag of England flung.
Till the last great freedom is found,
And the last great truth be taught,
Till the last great deed be done
And the last great battle is fought;
Till the last great fighter is slain in the last great fight
And the war-wolf is dead in his den,
England, breeder of hope and valour and might,
Iron mother of men.
Yea, England, England, England,
Till honour and valour are dead,
Till the world’s great cannons rust,
Till the world’s great hopes are dust,
Till faith and freedom be fled,
Till wisdom and justice have passed
To sleep with those who sleep in the many-chambered vast,
Till glory and knowledge are charnelled dust in dust,
To all that is best in the world’s unrest,
In heart and mind you are wed.
While out from the Indian jungle
To the far Canadian snows,
Over the east and over the west,
Over the worst and over the best,
The flag of the world to its winds unfurled,
The blood-red ensign blows.
_William Wilfred Campbell._
CXCVIII
THE WORLD-MOTHER
By crag and lonely moor she stands,
This mother of half a world’s great men,
And kens them far by sea-wracked lands,
Or orient jungle or western fen.
And far out ’mid the mad turmoil,
Or where the desert places keep
Their lonely hush, her children toil,
Or wrapt in wide-world honour sleep.
By Egypt’s sands or western wave,
She kens her latest heroes rest,
With Scotland’s honour o’er each grave,
And Britain’s flag above each breast.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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