World War, 1914-1918; World War, 1914-1918 -- Poetry
They who had all, gave all. Their half-writ story
Lies in the empty halls they knew so well,
But they, the knights of God, shall see His glory,
And find the Grail ev'n in the fire of hell.
MILDRED HUXLEY
_By permission of the Author_
THE SEARCHLIGHTS
(_Political morality differs from individual morality, because there is
no power above the State.--General von Bernhardi_)
Shadow by shadow, stripped for fight
The lean black cruisers search the sea.
Night-long their level shafts of light
Revolve, and find no enemy.
Only they know each leaping wave
May hide the lightning, and their grave.
And in the land they guard so well
Is there no silent watch to keep?
An age is dying, and the bell
Rings midnight on a vaster deep.
But over all its waves, once more,
The searchlights move, from shore to shore.
And captains that we thought were dead,
And dreamers that we thought were dumb,
And voices that we thought were fled,
Arise, and call us, and we come:
And "search in thine own soul", they cry;
"For there, too, lurks thine enemy".
Search for the foe in thine own soul,
The sloth, the intellectual pride;
The trivial jest that veils the goal
For which our fathers lived and died;
The lawless dreams, the cynic Art,
That rend thy nobler self apart.
Not far, not far into the night,
These level swords of light can pierce;
Yet for her faith does England fight,
Her faith in this our universe,
Believing Truth and Justice draw
From founts of everlasting law:
The law that rules the stars, our stay,
Our compass through the world's wide sea,
The one sure light, the one sure way,
The one firm base of Liberty;
The one firm road that men have trod
Through Chaos to the throne of God.
Therefore a Power above the State,
The unconquerable Power returns.
The fire, the fire that made her great
Once more upon her altar burns.
Once more, redeemed, and healed and whole,
She moves to the Eternal Goal.
ALFRED NOYES
_Reprinted by permission from the "Lord of Misrule",
by Alfred Noyes. Copyright, 1915, by Frederick
A. Stokes Company_
THE SEA IS HIS
The Sea is His: He made it,
Black gulf and sunlit shoal,
From battered bight to where the long
Leagues of Atlantic roll:
Small strait and ceaseless ocean
He bade each one to be:
The Sea is His: He made it--
And England keeps it free.
By pain and stress and striving
Beyond the nations' ken,
By vigils stern when others slept,
By many lives of men;
Through nights of storm, through dawnings
Blacker than midnights be--
This Sea that God created,
England has kept it free.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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