Volume II Part 5 (1/2)
VIII
There was never a dale in our isle so deep That her wide wings were not free To soar to the sovran heights and keep Sight of the rolling sea: Is it there, is it here in the rolling skies, The realm of her future fame?
Look once, look once in her glittering eyes, Ye shall find her the same, the same.
_Up to the sides with the hawk, the hawk, As it was in the days of old!
Ye shall sail once more, ye shall soar, ye shall soar To the new-found realms of gold._
IX
She hath ridden on white Arabian steeds Thro' the ringing English dells, For the joy of a great queen, hunting in state, To the music of golden bells; A queen's fair fingers have drawn the hood And tossed her aloft in the blue, A white hand eager for needless blood; I hunt for the needs of two.
_Yet I am the hawk, the hawk, the hawk!
Who knoweth my pitiless breast?
Who watcheth me sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._
X
Who fas.h.i.+oned her wide and splendid eyes That have stared in the eyes of kings?
With a silken twist she was looped to their wrist: She has clawed at their jewelled rings!
Who flung her first thro' the crimson dawn To pluck him a prey from the skies, When the love-light shone upon lake and lawn In the valleys of Paradise?
_Who fas.h.i.+oned the hawk, the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the wild wind's way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._
XI
Is there ever a song in all the world Shall say how the quest began With the beak and the wings that have made us kings And cruel--almost--as man?
The wild wind whimpers across the heath Where the sad little tufts of blue And the red-stained grey little feathers of death Flutter! _Who fas.h.i.+oned us? Who?
Who fas.h.i.+oned the scimitar wings of the hawk, Bent beak and arrowy breast?
Who watcheth him sway in the sun's bright way?
Flee--flee--for I quest, I quest._
XII
Linnet and woodp.e.c.k.e.r, red-cap and jay, Shriek that a doom shall fall One day, one day, on my pitiless way From the sky that is over us all; But the great blue hawk of the heavens above Fas.h.i.+oned the world for his prey,-- King and queen and hawk and dove, We shall meet in his clutch that day; _Shall I not welcome him, I, the hawk?
Yea, cry, as they shrink from his claw, Cry, as I die, to the unknown sky, Life, I follow thy law!_
XIII
_Chorus--_ _s.h.i.+ps have swept with my conquering name ..._ Over the world and beyond, Hark! Bellerophon, Marlborough, Thunderer, Condor, respond!-- _On the blistered decks of their dread renown, In the rush of my storm-beat wings, Hawkins and Hawke went sailing down To the glory of deep-sea kings!
By the storm-beat wings of the hawk, the hawk, Bent beak and pitiless breast, They clove their way thro' the red sea-fray!