Chapter V

Trumpeter, sound for the splendour of God!
Sound the music whose name is law,
Whose service is perfect freedom still,
The order august that rules the stars.
Bid the anarchs of night withdraw,
Too long the destroyers have worked their will,
Sound for the last, the last of the wars.
Sound for the heights that our fathers trod,
When truth was truth and love was love,
With a hell beneath, but a heaven above,
Trumpeter, rally us, up to the heights of it!
Sound for the City of God.

THE HEART OF CANADA

_July 1912_

Because her heart is all too proud
--_Canada! Canada! fair young Canada_--
To breathe the might of her love aloud,
Be quick, O Motherland!
Because her soul is wholly free
--_Canada kneels, thy daughter, Canada_--
England, look in her eyes and see,
Honour and understand.

Because her pride at thy masthead shines,
--_Canada! Canada!_--queenly Canada
Bows with all her breathing pines,
All her fragrant firs.
Because our isle is little and old
--_Canada! Canada!_--young-eyed Canada
Gives thee, Mother, her hands to hold,
And makes thy glory hers.

Because thy Fleet is hers for aye,
--_Canada! Canada!_--clear-souled Canada,
Ere the war-cloud roll this way,
Bids the world beware.
Her heart, her soul, her sword are thine
--_Thine the guns, the guns of Canada!_--
The ships are foaming into line,
And Canada will be there.

THE RETURN OF THE HOME-BORN

All along the white chalk coast
The mist lifts clear.
Wight is glimmering like a ghost.
The ship draws near.
Little inch-wide meadows
Lost so many a day,
The first time I knew you
Was when I turned away.

Island--little island--
Lost so many a year,
Mother of all I leave behind
--_Draw me near!_--
Mother of half the rolling world,
And O, so little and gray,
The first time I found you
Was when I turned away.

_Over yon green water
Sussex lies.
But the slow mists gather
In our eyes.
England, little island
--God, how dear!--
Fold me in your mighty arms,
Draw me near._

Little tawny roofs of home,
Nestling in the gray,
Where the smell of Sussex loam
Blows across the bay ...
Fold me, teach me, draw me close,
Lest in death I say
The first time I loved you
Was when I turned away.

A SALUTE FROM THE FLEET

I

_The Guns of H.M.S. Royal Sovereign_

Ocean-mother of England, thine is the crowning acclaim.
Here, in the morning of battle, from over the world and beyond,
Here, by our fleets of steel, silently foam into line
Fleets of our glorious dead, thy shadowy oak-walled ships.
Mother, for O, thy soul must speak thro' our iron lips!
How should we speak to the ages, unless with a word of thine?
Utter it, Victory! Let thy great signal flash thro' the flame!
Answer, _Bellerophon_, _Marlborough_, _Thunderer_, _Condor_,
respond!

II

_The Guns of H.M.S. Majestic_

Out of the ages we speak unto you, O ye ages to be.
Rocks of Sevastopol, echo our thunder-word, bruit it afar.
Roll it, O Mediterranean, round by Gibraltar again.
Buffet it, Porto Bello, back to the Nile once more.
Answer it, great St. Vincent! Answer it, Elsinore,
Buffet it back from your crags and roll it over the main!
Heights of Quebec, O hear and re-echo it back to the Baltic Sea!
Answer it, _Camperdown_! Answer it, answer it, _Trafalgar_!

III

_The Guns of H.M.S. Rainbow_

How should we speak to the ages, if not with a word of thine,
Maker of cloud and harvest, foam and the sea-bird's wing,
Ocean-Mother of England and all things living and free?
Deep that wast moved by the Spirit to bloom with the first white morn,
Mother of Light and Freedom, mother of hopes unborn,
Speak, O world-wide welder of nations, O Soul of the sea!
Thine was the watchword that called us of old o'er the gray sky-line:
Lift thy stormy salute. It is freedom and peace that we bring.

IV

_The Guns of H.M.S. Victory_

Therefore on thee we call, O Mother, for we are thy sons.
Speak, with thy world-wide voice, O wake us anew from our sleep!
Speak, for the Light of the world still lives and grows on thy face.
Give us the ancient Word once more, the unchangeable Word,--
This that Nelson knew, this that Effingham heard,
This that resounds for ever in all the hearts of our race,
This that lives for a moment on the iron lips of our guns,
This--that echoes for ever and ever--the Word of the Deep.

V

_The Guns of H.M.S. Dreadnought_

How shall a king be saved by the multitude of an host?
Was not the answer thine, when fleet upon fleet swept, hurled
Blind thro' the dark North Sea, with all their invincible ships?
Thine was the answer, O mother of all men born to be free!
Witness again, Cape Wrath!--O thine, everlastingly,
Thine as Freedom arose and rolled thy song from her lips,
Thine when she 'stablished her throne in thy sight, on our rough
rock-coast,
Thine with thy lustral glory and thunder, washing the world.

VI

_The Guns of H.M.S. Temeraire_

O for that ancient cry of the watch at the midnight bell,
Under the unknown stars, from the decks that Frobisher trod.
Hark, _Before the world?_--he questions a fleet in the dark!
Answer it, friend or foe! And, ringing from mast to mast,
Mother, hast thou forgotten what cry in the dark went past,
Answering still as he questioned? _Before the world?_ O, hark,
Ringing anear, _Before the world?_ ... _was God_ ... All's well!
Dying afar ... _Before the world?_ ... All's well ... _was God!_

VII

_The Guns of H.M.S. Revenge_

Raleigh and Grenville heard it, Knights of the Ocean-sea.
Have we forgotten it only, we with our leagues of steel?
Give us our watchword again, O mother, in this great hour!
Here, in the morning of battle, here as we gather our might,
Here, as the nations of earth in the light of thy freedom unite,
Shake our hearts with thy Word, O 'stablish our peace on thy power!
'Stablish our power on thy peace, thy glory, thy liberty,
'Stablish on thy deep Word the throne of our Commonweal.

VIII

_The Guns of H.M.S. Leviathan_

They that go down to the sea in ships--they heard it of old--
They shall behold His wonders, alone on the Deep, the Deep!
Have _we_ forgotten, we only? O, rend the heavens again,
Voice of the Everlasting, shake the great hills with thy breath!
Roll the Voice of our God thro' the valleys of doubt and death!
Waken the fog-bound cities with the shout of the wind-swept main,
Inland over the smouldering plains, till the mists unfold,
Darkness die, and England, England arise from sleep.

IX

_The Guns of H.M.S. Triumph_

Queen of the North and the South, Queen of our ocean-renown,
England, England, England, O lift thine eyes to the sun!
Wake, for the hope of the whole world yearns to thee, watches and
waits!
Now on the full flood-tide of the ages, the supreme hour
Beacons thee onward in might to the purpose and crown of thy power.
Hark, for the whole Atlantic thunders against thy gates,
Take the Crown of all Time, all might, earth's crowning Crown,
Throne thy children in peace and in freedom together, O weld them
in one.