Verses 1889-1896 Part 19

From reef and rock and skerry -- over headland, ness, and voe -- The Coastwise Lights of England watch the s.h.i.+ps of England go!

Through the endless summer evenings, on the lineless, level floors; Through the yelling Channel tempest when the siren hoots and roars -- By day the dipping house-flag and by night the rocket's trail -- As the sheep that graze behind us so we know them where they hail.

We bridge across the dark and bid the helmsman have a care, The flash that wheeling inland wakes his sleeping wife to prayer; From our vexed eyries, head to gale, we bind in burning chains The lover from the sea-rim drawn -- his love in English lanes.

We greet the clippers wing-and-wing that race the Southern wool; We warn the crawling cargo-tanks of Bremen, Leith, and Hull; To each and all our equal lamp at peril of the sea -- The white wall-sided war-s.h.i.+ps or the whalers of Dundee!

Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guardports of the Morn!

Beat up, beat in from Southerly, O gipsies of the Horn!

Swift shuttles of an Empire's loom that weave us, main to main, The Coastwise Lights of England give you welcome back again!

Go, get you gone up-Channel with the sea-crust on your plates; Go, get you into London with the burden of your freights!

Haste, for they talk of Empire there, and say, if any seek, The Lights of England sent you and by silence shall ye speak!

The Song of the Dead

Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges -- They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.

Song of the Dead in the South -- in the sun by their skeleton horses, Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sear river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle hollows, Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof -- in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.

Song of the Dead in the West -- in the Barrens, the waste that betrayed them, Where the wolverene tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-mound they made them; Hear now the Song of the Dead!

I

We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town; We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.

Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need, Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.

As the deer breaks -- as the steer breaks -- from the herd where they graze, In the faith of little children we went on our ways.

Then the wood failed -- then the food failed -- then the last water dried -- In the faith of little children we lay down and died.

On the sand-drift -- on the veldt-side -- in the fern-scrub we lay, That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.

Follow after -- follow after! We have watered the root, And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!

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!

When Drake went down to the Horn And England was crowned thereby, 'Twixt seas unsailed and sh.o.r.es 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 G.o.d, we ha' paid in full!

There's never a flood goes sh.o.r.eward 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 gray level plains of ooze where the sh.e.l.l-burred 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.

They have wakened the timeless Things; they have killed their father Time; Joining hands in the gloom, a league from the last of the sun.

Hus.h.!.+ Men talk to-day o'er the waste of the ultimate slime, And a new Word runs between: whispering, "Let us be one!"

The Song of the Sons

One from the ends of the earth -- gifts at an open door -- Treason has much, but we, Mother, thy sons have more!

From the whine of a dying man, from the snarl of a wolf-pack freed, Turn, and the world is thine. Mother, be proud of thy seed!

Count, are we feeble or few? Hear, is our speech so rude?

Look, are we poor in the land? Judge, are we men of The Blood?

Those that have stayed at thy knees, Mother, go call them in -- We that were bred overseas wait and would speak with our kin.

Not in the dark do we fight -- haggle and flout and gibe; Selling our love for a price, loaning our hearts for a bribe.

Gifts have we only to-day -- Love without promise or fee -- Hear, for thy children speak, from the uttermost parts of the sea!

The Song of the Cities

BOMBAY

Royal and Dower-royal, I the Queen Fronting thy richest sea with richer hands -- A thousand mills roar through me where I glean All races from all lands.

CALCUTTA

Me the Sea-captain loved, the River built, Wealth sought and Kings adventured life to hold.

Hail, England! I am Asia -- Power on silt, Death in my hands, but Gold!

MADRAS