Chapter III

We trust not in the multitude of an host.
Nations that greatly builded, greatly stand.
In those dark hours, the Splendour of a Hand
Has moved behind the darkness, till that coast
Where hate and faction seemed to triumph most
Reveals itself--a buckler and a brand,
Our rough-hewn work, shining o'er sea and land,
But shaped to nobler ends than man could boast.

It is God's answer. Though, for many a year,
This land forgot the faith that made her great,
Now, as her fleets cast off the North Sea foam,
Casting aside all faction and all fear,
Thrice-armed in all the majesty of her fate,
Britain remembers, and her sword strikes home.

ALFRED NOYES

ENGLAND TO THE SEA

Hearken, O Mother, hearken to thy daughter!
Fain would I tell thee what men tell to me,
Saying that henceforth no more on any water
Shall I be first or great or loved or free,

But that these others--so the tale is spoken--
Who have not known thee all these centuries
By fire and sword shall yet turn England broken
Back from thy breast and beaten from thy seas,

Me--whom thou barest where thy waves should guard me,
Me--whom thou suckled'st on thy milk of foam,
Me--whom thy kisses shaped what while they marred me,
To whom thy storms are sweet and ring of home.

"Behold," they cry, "she is grown soft and strengthless,
All her proud memories changed to fear and fret."
Say, thou, who hast watched through ages that are lengthless,
Whom have I feared, and when did I forget?

What sons of mine have shunned thy whorls and races?
Have I not reared for thee time and again
And bid go forth to share thy fierce embraces
Sea-ducks, sea-wolves, sea-rovers, and sea-men?

Names that thou knowest--great hearts that thou holdest,
Rocking them, rocking them in an endless wake--
Captains the world can match not with its boldest,
Hawke, Howard, Grenville, Frobisher, Drake?

Nelson--the greatest of them all--the master
Who swept across thee like a shooting star,
And, while the Earth stood veiled before disaster,
Caught Death and slew him--there--at Trafalgar?

Mother, they knew me then as thou didst know me;
Then I cried, Peace, and every flag was furled:
But I am old, it seems, and they would show me
That never more my peace shall bind the world.

Wherefore, O Sea, I, standing thus before thee,
Stretch forth my hands unto thy surge and say:
"When they come forth who seek this empire o'er thee,
And I go forth to meet them--on that day

"God grant to us the old Armada weather,
The winds that rip, the heavens that stoop and lour--
Not till the Sea and England sink together,
Shall they be masters! Let them boast that hour!"

R. E. VERNEDE

THE HOUR

We've shut the gates by Dover Straits,
And North, where the tides run free,
Cheek by jowl, our watchdogs prowl,
Grey hulks in a greyer sea.
And the prayer that England prays to-night--
O Lord of our destiny!--
As the foam of our plunging prows, is white;
We have stood for peace, and we war for right,
God give us victory!

Now slack, now strung, from the mainmast flung,
The flag throbs fast in the breeze;
Strained o'er the foam, like the hearts at home
That beat for their sons on the seas.
For mothers and wives are praying to-night--
O Lord of our destiny!--
But we've no time, for our lips are tight,
Our fists are clenched, and we're stripped to fight.
God give us victory!

The west winds blow in the face of the foe--
Old Drake is beating his drum--
They drank to "The Day," for "The Hour" we pray.
The day and the hour have come.
The sea-strewn Empire prays to-night--
O Lord of our destiny!--
Thou didst give the seas into Britain's might,
For the freedom of Thy seas we smite.
God give us victory!

JAMES BERNARD FAGAN

THE WIFE OF FLANDERS

Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered,
Where I had seven sons until to-day--
A little hill of hay your spur has scattered....
This is not Paris. You have lost the way.

You, staring at your sword to find it brittle,
Surprised at the surprise that was your plan,
Who shaking and breaking barriers not a little,
Find never more the death-door of Sedan.

Must I for more than carnage call you claimant,
Paying you a penny for each son you slay?
Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment
For what you have lost. And how shall I repay?

What is the price of that red spark that caught me
From a kind farm that never had a name?
What is the price of that dead man they brought me?
For other dead men do not look the same.

How should I pay for one poor graven steeple
Whereon you shattered what you shall not know?
How should I pay you, miserable people,
How should I pay you everything you owe?

Unhappy, can I give you back your honour?
Though I forgave, would any man forget?
While all the great green land has trampled on her
The treason and terror of the night we met.

Not any more in vengeance or in pardon,
One old wife bargains for a bean that's hers.
You have no word to break: no heart to harden.
Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.

G. K. CHESTERTON

THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES

And now, while the dark vast earth shakes and rocks
In this wild dreamlike snare of mortal shocks,
How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars
On these magnificent, cruel wars?--
Venus, that brushes with her shining lips
(Surely!) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks
With hers its all ungentle wantonness?--
Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships
Creeping and creeping in their restlessness),
The moon pouring strange light on things more strange,
Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands
Trembling with change and fear of counterchange?

O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars!
The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering.
I cannot look up to the crowded height
And see the fair stars trembling in their light,
For thinking of the starlike spirits of men
Crowding the earth and with great passion quivering:--
Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity.
I cannot look up to the naked skies
Because a sorrow on dark midnight lies,
Death, on the living world of sense;
Because on my own land a shadow lies
That may not rise;
Because from bare grey hillside and rich city
Streams of uncomprehending sadness pour,
Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence....
How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars
On these magnificent, cruel wars?

Stars trembled in broad heaven, faint with pity.
An hour to dawn I looked. Beside the trees
Wet mist shaped other trees that branching rose,
Covering the woods and putting out the stars.
There was no murmur on the seas,
No wind blew--only the wandering air that grows
With dawn, then murmurs, sighs,
And dies.
The mist climbed slowly, putting out the stars,
And the earth trembled when the stars were gone;
And moving strangely everywhere upon
The trembling earth, thickened the watery mist.

And for a time the holy things are veiled.
England's wise thoughts are swords; her quiet hours
Are trodden underfoot like wayside flowers,
And every English heart is England's wholly.
In starless night
A serious passion streams the heaven with light.
A common beating is in the air--
The heart of England throbbing everywhere.
And all her roads are nerves of noble thought,
And all her people's brain is but her brain;
And all her history (less her shame)
Is part of her requickened consciousness.
Her courage rises clean again;
Her children's inspiration is her name, her name!

Even in victory there hides defeat;
The spirit's murdered though the body survives,
Except the cause for which a people strives
Burn with no covetous, foul heat;
Fights she against herself who infamously draws
The sword against man's secret spiritual laws.
But thou, England, because a bitter heel
Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will,
The conscience of the world,
For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight
Purely through long profoundest night,
Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like thee;
And (if to thee the stars yield victory)
Tempering their hate of the great foe, that hurled
Vainly her strength against the conscience of the world,
Though all their dead be countless as the stars,
And all the living bitter as the sea.

I looked again, or dreamed I looked, and saw
The stars again and all their peace again.
The moving mist had gone, and shining still
The moon went high and pale above the hill.
Not now those lights were trembling in the vast
Ways of the nervy heaven, nor trembled earth:
Profound and calm they gazed as the soft-shod hours passed.
And with less fear (not with less awe,
Remembering, England, all the blood and pain),
How look, I cried, ye stern and solitary stars
On these disastrous wars!

JOHN FREEMAN

COMMANDEERED

Last year he drew the harvest home
Along the winding upland lane;
The children twisted marigolds
And clover flowers, to deck his mane.
Last year--he drew the harvest home!

To-day--with puzzled, patient face,
With ears a-droop, and weary feet,
He marches to the sound of drums,
And draws the gun along the street.
To-day--he draws the guns of war!