Volume II Part 102 (1/2)
Kneel, Imperial Commonweal!_
THE SWORD OF ENGLAND
(_Written during a European war crisis_)
Not as one muttering in a spell-bound sleep Shall England speak the word; Not idly bid the embattled lightnings leap, Nor lightly draw the sword!
Let statesmen grope by night in a blind dream, The cold clear morning star Should like a trophy in her helmet gleam When England sweeps to war!
Not like a derelict, drunk with surf and spray, And drifting down to doom; But like the Sun-G.o.d calling up the day Should England rend that gloom.
Not as in trance, at some hypnotic call, Nor with a doubtful cry; But a clear faith, like a banner above us all, Rolling from sky to sky.
She sheds no blood to that vain G.o.d of strife Whom striplings call ”renown”; She knows that only they who reverence life Can n.o.bly lay it down;
And these will ride from child and home and love, Through death and h.e.l.l that day; But O, her faith, her flag, must burn above, Her soul must lead the way!
THE DAWN OF PEACE
Yes--”on our brows we feel the breath Of dawn,” though in the night we wait!
An arrow is in the heart of Death, A G.o.d is at the doors of Fate!
The spirit that moved upon the Deep Is moving through the minds of men: The nations feel it in their sleep, A change has touched their dreams again.
Voices, confused, and faint, arise, Troubling their hearts from East and West.
A doubtful light is in their skies, A gleam that will not let them rest: The dawn, the dawn is on the wing, The stir of change on every side, Unsignalled as the approach of Spring, Invincible as the hawthorn-tide.
Have ye not heard it, far and nigh, The voice of France across the dark, And all the Atlantic with one cry Beating the sh.o.r.es of Europe?--hark!
Then--if ye will--uplift your word Of cynic wisdom! Once again Tell us He came to bring a sword, Tell us He lived and died in vain.
Say that we dream! Our dreams have woven Truths that out-face the burning sun: The lightnings, that we dreamed, have cloven Time, s.p.a.ce, and linked all lands in one!
Dreams! But their swift celestial fingers Have knit the world with threads of steel, Till no remotest island lingers Beyond the world's one Commonweal.
Tell us that custom, sloth, and fear Are strong, then name them ”common-sense”!
Tell us that greed rules everywhere, Then dub the lie ”experience”: Year after year, age after age, Has handed down, thro' fool and child, For earth's divinest heritage The dreams whereon old wisdom smiled.
Dreams are they? But ye cannot stay them, Or thrust the dawn back for one hour!
Truth, Love, and Justice, if ye slay them, Return with more than earthly power: Strive, if ye will, to seal the fountains That send the Spring thro' leaf and spray: Drive back the sun from the Eastern mountains, Then--bid this mightier movement stay.
It is the Dawn of Peace! The nations From East to West have heard a cry,-- ”Through all earth's blood-red generations By hate and slaughter climbed thus high, Here--on this height--still to aspire, One only path remains untrod, One path of love and peace climbs higher!
Make straight that highway for our G.o.d.”
THE BRINGERS OF GOOD NEWS
Like fallen stars the watch-fires gleamed Along our menaced age that night!
Our bivouacked century tossed and dreamed Of battle with the approaching light.