THE SEA IS HIS
The Sea is His: He made it,
Black gulf and sunlit shoal,
From battered bight to where the long
Leagues of Atlantic roll:
Small strait and ceaseless ocean
He bade each one to be:
The Sea is His: He made it—
By pain and stress and striving
Beyond the nations' ken,
By vigils stern when others slept,
By many lives of men;
Through nights of storm, through dawnings
Blacker than midnights be—
This Sea that God created,
England has kept it free.
Count me the splendid captains
Who sailed with courage high
To chart the perilous ways unknown—
Tell me where these men lie!
To light a path for ships to come
They moored at Dead Man's quay;
The Sea is God's—He made it,
And these men made it free.
Oh, little land of England,
Oh, Mother of hearts too brave,
Men say this trust shall pass from thee
Who guardest Nelson's grave.
Aye, but these braggarts yet shall learn,
Who'd hold the world in fee,
The Sea is God's—and England,
England shall keep it free.
[G]R. E. Vernède
From "War Poems", by R. E. Vernède. By permission of the Publishers, Wm. Heinemann, London