Volume I Part 26 (1/2)

VI

Ay! Lift the flag of England; And lo, that Eastern cross is there, Veiled with a hundred meanings as our English eyes are veiled; Yet to the grander dawn we move oblivious of the sign we bear, Oblivious of the heights we climb until the last be scaled; Then with all the earth before us And the great cross floating o'er us We shall break the sword we forged of old, so weak we were and blind; While the inviolate heaven discloses England's Rose of all the roses Dawning wide and ever wider o'er the kingdom of mankind.

VII

Hasten the Kingdom, England; For then all nations shall be one; One as the ordered stars are one that sing upon their way, One with the rhythmic glories of the swinging sea and the rolling sun, One with the flow of life and death, the tides of night and day; One with all dreams of beauty, One with all laws of duty; One with the weak and helpless while the one sky burns above; Till eyes by tears made glorious Look up at last victorious, And lips that starved break open in one song of life and love.

VIII

Hasten the Kingdom, England; And when the Spring returns again Rekindle in our English hearts the universal Spring, That we may wait in faith upon the former and the latter rain, Till all waste places burgeon and the wildernesses sing; Pour the glory of thy pity Through the dark and troubled city; Pour the splendour of thy beauty over wood and meadow fair; May the G.o.d of battles guide thee And the Christ-child walk beside thee With a word of peace for England in the dawn of Nelson's Year.

IN TIME OF WAR

I

To-night o'er Bagshot heath the purple heather Rolls like dumb thunder to the splendid West; And mighty ragged clouds are ma.s.sed together Above the scarred old common's broken breast; And there are hints of blood between the boulders, Red glints of fiercer blossom, bright and bold; And round the s.h.a.ggy mounds and sullen shoulders The gorse repays the sun with savage gold.

And now, as in the West the light grows holy, And all the hollows of the heath grow dim, Far off, a sulky rumble rolls up slowly Where guns at practice growl their evening hymn.

And here and there in bare clean yellow s.p.a.ces The print of horse-hoofs like an answering cry Strikes strangely on the sense from lonely places Where there is nought but empty heath and sky.

The print of warlike hoofs, where now no figure Of horse or man along the sky's red rim Breaks on the low horizon's rough black rigour To make the gorgeous waste less wild and grim;

Strangely the hoof-prints strike, a Crusoe's wonder, Framed with sharp furze amongst the footless fells, A menace and a mystery, rapt asunder, As if the whole wide world contained nought else,--

Nought but the grand despair of desolation Between us and that wild, how far, how near, Where, clothed with thunder, nation grapples nation, And Slaughter grips the clay-cold hand of Fear.

II

And far above the purple heath the sunset stars awaken, And ghostly hosts of cloud across the West begin to stream, And all the low soft winds with m.u.f.fled cannonades are shaken, And all the blood-red blossom draws aloof into a dream; A dream--no more--and round the dream the clouds are curled together; A dream of two great stormy hosts embattled in the sky; For there against the low red heavens each sombre ridge of heather Up-heaves a hedge of bayonets around a battle-cry;

Melts in the distant battle-field or brings the dream so near it That, almost, as the rifted clouds around them swim and reel, A thousand grey-lipped faces flash--ah, hark, the heart can hear it-- The sharp command that lifts as one the levelled lines of steel.

And through the purple thunders there are silent shadows creeping With murderous gleams of light, and then--a mighty leaping roar Where foe and foe are met; and then--a long low sound of weeping As Death laughs out from sea to sea, another fight is o'er.

Another fight--but ah, how much is over? Night descending Draws o'er the scene her ghastly moon-shot veil with piteous hands; But all around the bivouac-glare the shadowy pickets wending See sights, hear sounds that only war's own madness understands.

No circle of the accursed dead where dreaming Dante wandered, No city of death's eternal dole could match this mortal world Where men, before the living soul and quivering flesh are sundered, Through all the b.e.s.t.i.a.l shapes of pain to one wide grave are hurled.

But in the midst for those who dare beyond the fringe to enter Be sure one kingly figure lies with pale and blood-soiled face, And round his brows a ragged crown of thorns; and in the centre Of those pale folded hands and feet the sigil of his grace.

See, how the pale limbs, marred and scarred in love's lost battle, languish; See how the splendid pa.s.sion still smiles quietly from his eyes: Come, come and see a king indeed, who triumphs in his anguish, Who conquers here in utter loss beneath the eternal skies.

For unto lips so deadly calm what answer shall be given?

Oh pale, pale king so deadly still beneath the unshaken stars, Who shall deny thy kingdom here, though heaven and earth were riven, With the last roar of onset in the world's intestine wars?