A Song of the English

A SONG OF THE ENGLISH

 
Fair is our lot – O goodly is our heritage!
(Humble ye, my people, and be fearful in your mirth!)
For the Lord our God Most High
He hath made the deep as dry,
He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the Earth!
 
 
Yea, though we sinned – and our rulers went from righteousness —
Deep in all dishonour though we stained our garments’ hem.
Oh be ye not dismayed,
Though we stumbled and we strayed,
We were led by evil counsellors – the Lord shall deal with them!
 
 
Hold ye the Faith – the Faith our Fathers sealèd us;
Whoring not with visions – overwise and over-stale.
Except ye pay the Lord
Single heart and single sword,
Of your children in their bondage shall He ask them treble-tale!
 
 
Keep ye the Law – be swift in all obedience —
Clear the land of evil, drive the road and bridge the ford.
Make ye sure to each his own
That he reap where he hath sown;
By the peace among Our peoples let men know we serve the Lord!
 
 
Hear now a song – a song of broken interludes —
A song of little cunning; of a singer nothing worth.
Through the naked words and mean
May ye see the truth between
As the singer knew and touched it in the ends of all the Earth!
 

THE COASTWISE LIGHTS

 
Our brows are bound with spindrift and the weed is on our knees;
Our loins are battered ’neath us by the swinging, smoking seas.
From reef and rock and skerry – over headland ness, and voe —
The Coastwise Lights of England watch the ships 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 warships or the whalers of Dundee!
 
 
Come up, come in from Eastward, from the guard-ports of the Morn!