The Years Between

E-text prepared by Thierry Alberto, L. N. Yaddanapudi, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
METHUEN AND CO. LTD. 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. LONDON
First Published in 1919
Seven Watchmen sitting in a tower, Watching what had come upon mankind, Showed the Man the Glory and the Power, And bade him shape the Kingdom to his mind. 'All things on Earth your will shall win you' ('Twas so their counsel ran) 'But the Kingdom—the Kingdom is within you,' Said the Man's own mind to the Man. For time, and some time— As it was in the bitter years before, So it shall be in the over-sweetened hour— That a man's mind is wont to tell him more Than Seven Watchmen sitting in a tower.
1902
(When Germany proposed that England should help her in a naval demonstration to collect debts from Venezuela.)
The banked oars fell an hundred strong, And backed and threshed and ground, But bitter was the rowers' song As they brought the war-boat round.
They had no heart for the rally and roar That makes the whale-bath smoke— When the great blades cleave and hold and leave As one on the racing stroke.
They sang:—'What reckoning do you keep, And steer her by what star, If we come unscathed from the Southern deep To be wrecked on a Baltic bar?
'Last night you swore our voyage was done, But seaward still we go, And you tell us now of a secret vow You have made with an open foe!
'That we must lie off a lightless coast And haul and back and veer, At the will of the breed that have wronged us most For a year and a year and a year!
'There was never a shame in Christendie They laid not to our door— And you say we must take the winter sea And sail with them once more?