A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems Part 10

Lest perchance your reckoning on some latter day be worse, Halt and hearken, lords of land and princes of the purse, Ere the tide be full that comes with blessing and with curse.

Where we stand; as where you sit, scarce falls a sprinkling spray; But the wind that swells, the wave that follows, none shall stay: Spread no more of sail for s.h.i.+pwreck: out, and clear the way!

_A WORD FOR THE COUNTRY._

Men, born of the land that for ages Has been honoured where freedom was dear, Till your labour wax fat on its wages You shall never be peers of a peer.

Where might is, the right is: Long purses make strong swords.

Let weakness learn meekness: G.o.d save the House of Lords!

You are free to consume in stagnation: You are equal in right to obey: You are brothers in bonds, and the nation Is your mother--whose sons are her prey.

Those others your brothers, Who toil not, weave, nor till, Refuse you and use you As waiters on their will.

But your fathers bowed down to their masters And obeyed them and served and adored.

Shall the sheep not give thanks to their pastors?

Shall the serf not give praise to his lord?

Time, waning and gaining, Grown other now than then, Needs pastors and masters For sheep, and not for men.

If his grandsire did service in battle, If his grandam was kissed by a king, Must men to my lord be as cattle Or as apes that he leads in a string?

To deem so, to dream so, Would bid the world proclaim The dastards for b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, Not heirs of England's fame.

Not in spite but in right of dishonour, There are actors who trample your boards Till the earth that endures you upon her Grows weary to bear you, my lords.

Your token is broken, It will not pa.s.s for gold: Your glory looks h.o.a.ry, Your sun in heaven turns cold.

They are worthy to reign on their brothers, To contemn them as clods and as carles, Who are Graces by grace of such mothers As brightened the bed of King Charles.

What manner of banner, What fame is this they flaunt, That Britain, soul-smitten, Should shrink before their vaunt?

Bright sons of sublime prost.i.tution, You are made of the mire of the street Where your grandmothers walked in pollution Till a coronet shone at their feet.

Your Graces, whose faces Bear high the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's brand, Seem stronger no longer Than all this honest land.

But the sons of her soldiers and seamen, They are worthy forsooth of their hire.

If the father won praise from all free men, Shall the sons not exult in their sire?

Let money make sunny And power make proud their lives, And feed them and breed them Like drones in drowsiest hives.

But if haply the name be a burden And the souls be no kindred of theirs, Should wise men rejoice in such guerdon Or brave men exult in such heirs?

Or rather the father Frown, shamefaced, on the son, And no men but foemen, Deriding, cry 'Well done'?

Let the gold and the land they inherit Pa.s.s ever from hand into hand: In right of the forefather's merit Let the gold be the son's, and the land.

Soft raiment, rich payment, High place, the state affords; Full measure of pleasure, But now no more, my lords.

Is the future beleaguered with dangers If the poor be far other than slaves?

Shall the sons of the land be as strangers In the land of their forefathers' graves?

Shame were it to bear it, And shame it were to see: If free men you be, men, Let proof proclaim you free.

'But democracy means dissolution: See, laden with clamour and crime, How the darkness of dim revolution Comes deepening the twilight of time!

Ah, better the fetter That holds the poor man's hand Than peril of sterile Blind change that wastes the land.

'Gaze forward through clouds that environ; It shall be as it was in the past.

Not with dreams, but with blood and with iron, Shall a nation be moulded to last.'

So teach they, so preach they, Who dream themselves the dream That hallows the gallows And bids the scaffold stream.

'With a hero at head, and a nation Well gagged and well drilled and well cowed, And a gospel of war and d.a.m.nation, Has not empire a right to be proud?

Fools prattle and tattle Of freedom, reason, right, The beauty of duty, The loveliness of light.

'But we know, we believe it, we see it, Force only has power upon earth.'

So be it! and ever so be it For souls that are b.e.s.t.i.a.l by birth!

Let Prussian with Russian Exchange the kiss of slaves: But sea-folk are free folk By grace of winds and waves.

Has the past from the sepulchres beckoned?

Let answer from Englishmen be-- No man shall be lord of us reckoned Who is baser, not better, than we.

No coward, empowered To soil a brave man's name; For shame's sake and fame's sake, Enough of fame and shame.

Fame needs not the golden addition; Shame bears it abroad as a brand.

Let the deed, and no more the tradition, Speak out and be heard through the land.

Pride, rootless and fruitless, No longer takes and gives: But surer and purer The soul of England lives.

He is master and lord of his brothers Who is worthier and wiser than they.

Him only, him surely, shall others, Else equal, observe and obey.

Truth, flawless and awless, Do falsehood what it can, Makes royal the loyal And simple heart of man.

Who are these, then, that England should hearken, Who rage and wax wroth and grow pale If she turn from the sunsets that darken And her s.h.i.+p for the morning set sail?

Let strangers fear dangers: All know, that hold her dear, Dishonour upon her Can only fall through fear.

Men, born of the landsmen and seamen Who served her with souls and with swords, She bids you be brothers, and free men, And lordless, and fearless of lords.

She cares not, she dares not Care now for gold or steel: Light lead her, truth speed her, G.o.d save the Commonweal!

_A WORD FOR THE NATION._

I.

A word across the water Against our ears is borne, Of threatenings and of slaughter, Of rage and spite and scorn: We have not, alack, an ally to befriend us, And the season is ripe to extirpate and end us: Let the German touch hands with the Gaul, And the fortress of England must fall; And the sea shall be swept of her seamen, And the waters they ruled be their graves, And Dutchmen and Frenchmen be free men, And Englishmen slaves.

II.

Our time once more is over, Once more our end is near: A bull without a drover, The Briton reels to rear, And the van of the nations is held by his betters, And the seas of the world shall be loosed from his fetters, And his glory shall pa.s.s as a breath, And the life that is in him be death; And the sepulchre sealed on his glory For a sign to the nations shall be As of Tyre and of Carthage in story, Once lords of the sea.

III.

The lips are wise and loyal, The hearts are brave and true, Imperial thoughts and royal Make strong the clamorous crew, Whence louder and prouder the noise of defiance Rings rage from the grave of a trustless alliance, And bids us beware and be warned, As abhorred of all nations and scorned, As a swordless and spiritless nation, A wreck on the waste of the waves.

So foams the released indignation Of masterless slaves.